When Blue Was Gold
by MoonMargaret
Summary: Merlin is the most powerful warlock to ever walk the earth...but even he is not immune to sorcery. When all of the sorcerers in the area are enchanted to attack Arthur and Camelot, can Merlin hold onto himself? Or is he the most dangerous of them all? A continuation of a reveal fic from my series "In Media Res." Can be read without "In Media Res."
1. Inside Out

**Disclaimer: **_**Merlin**_** is not mine. **

Merlin was such a coward.

Well, that's what Arthur liked to tell him, at least. And it wasn't as though Merlin didn't have his share of particularly affecting fears that Arthur usually learned about at extremely inconvenient times. Arthur understood that Merlin had his fears; who wasn't afraid of something sometimes?

But why did it always have to be _sorcery_ that set Merlin running? Why couldn't it have been spiders? Or a fear of tardiness and overdrinking? This was ridiculous. Arthur swore that Merlin would physically tense whenever the subject came up between them. It was as though Merlin thought that a sorcerer was going to just pop up and curse them into oblivion whenever Arthur would mention the word "magic." Arthur could concede that magic _could_ be a rather frightening prospect to face, but _honestly._ Arthur didn't pay Merlin to run off every time someone said a word that rhymed with "sorcery."

Not that there _were_ a lot of words that rhymed with sorcery. And Arthur never made this particular argument with Merlin. It wasn't that he was afraid of offending Merlin; it was just that whenever the topic of Merlin's wages arose between them, Merlin tended to grow sulky and unpleasant. Arthur had told him on more than one occasion that if he would just do half of the work expected of him as the king's manservant, Arthur _might_ consider giving him a raise. But Merlin always retaliated by being tardy and dropping things and serving dishes that Arthur was almost positive had not been retrieved from the butcher. Or cook. So they didn't really talk about it. Arthur wasn't too ashamed of the negligence; while it wasn't exactly admirable that such a basic subject couldn't be discussed between them without a few small resultant revenges, Arthur figured that it was excusable. He and Merlin were so good at communicating openly with one another on all other subjects…so what if they just tried to avoid one every once in a while?

Although there were a few subjects that Arthur would like to throw at Merlin just then, most of them rather...unforgiving. Why did he _always_ have to run when Arthur most needed him? Just because this was the first time that it had ever happened didn't make it any more excusable. Although Arthur had still never quite gotten over Merlin absence at the moment of sudden Uther's death, when Arthur truly could have used the friendly support. But why, this time, had he been in such a hurry to make his escape? Would it have killed him to at least _lie_ about where and why he was going? Lacking any given excuse to rationalize Merlin's absence, no matter how weak, of _course_ Arthur had to jump to cowardice. And it wasn't as though Arthur could have just pushed it out of his mind to focus on more important matters than the degree to which his servant was irritating. Despite the urgency of the situation and the very real danger, Arthur was bored out of his mind. He was _hiding,_ of all things, and hiding seemed to involve an awful lot of inactivity. Even his company wasn't doing much to keep him occupied. He supposed that perhaps his current companions were just better suited to sitting quietly and keeping to themselves than he was.

So Arthur paced about the tower, alone save for Guinevere and a pair of guards, cursing Merlin and wishing very much that he were there with them.

It would have helped if it weren't such a very _small_ tower. Of course, he knew that the size of it was what made it so valuable, but the cramped quarters combined with the silence gave an uncomfortably close atmosphere to the single circular room. Arthur, fully armed and in such a small room that he had to check where the others were when he spun around so as to not whack them with the sheathed sword at his hip, was just about dying to _do_ something.

As long as that something didn't involve thinking about the tower. His heart still sped up in distinct unease when he thought of the decision for them to seek refuge in this place. Guinevere had tried to soothe the nerves, and she had almost succeeded. After all, the positives about hiding up in the tower far outnumbered the negatives. It was a small tower, but the highest of all of those connected to the castle. It overlooked on one side the courtyard and the massive iron gates—usually in disuse, although bolted and fortified on _this_ day—and, other the other side, the training field and edge of the forest. Arthur, once he had brought his queen to safety and begrudgingly acknowledged that it was best for him to remain and _hide_ as well, had had a good view that allowed him to watch as his men finished the fortifications closing off and adding last-minute protective measures to the walls around the citadel and then fled with the rest into the forest.

It was a good plan. Arthur knew that. Anyone who dared attack—magical or not—and discovered an abandoned castle would certainly assume that the king and queen would have fled with the rest. This tower was so easily overlooked that even Arthur had never given it half a thought until his father told him of its potential usefulness. He could count on one hand how many people knew of its importance. It was so negligible that it garnered no attention, but upon crossing the threshold of the single unremarkable door, any attackers would have found a very narrow passage of extremely steep stairs, winding a dizzy path up and up and up until they would come across the thick wooden door. This was not a tower that could be easily stormed. It was too high and too smooth for anyone to scale the walls, with only two windows. They would almost certainly last through this trial unscathed, and Arthur would still be at hand when it was all over to give aid to the citizens of the lower town who hadn't had the chance or ability to flee. And they only needed to make it through the rest of the afternoon and then the night. The moon would wane and the spell would be broken and they would certainly be safe until then.

Almost certainly.

There was one bad thing about the tower, and it was so very bad and had such a very glaring risk that Arthur would have regularly never chanced locking himself up in it. After all, the bad thing was the same as what made the tower so valuable. It was so difficult to get in, but if there were enough enemies, and if they managed to take the corridor…well, then it wouldn't so much be a case of having only one way in as having only one way out.

So _that_ wasn't particularly helping to settle Arthur.

And he felt so strangely…naked. It was one thing to be without Merlin. That was bizarre enough, and to be without Gaius as well made him feel…hollow. Gaius had been available to Arthur since he had been born, and the fact that this whole problem had to do with _sorcery,_ a subject upon which Gaius was probably the most knowledgeable person in the kingdom still living, just made the absence all the more affecting.

But then, if this _didn't_ have to do with sorcery, Arthur wouldn't have had to send Gaius away at all. He'd felt dreadful doing it. Gaius clearly hadn't wanted to leave Arthur's side, but Arthur's gentle insistence was firm. Gaius could use magic, and even if the old physician thought that his powers were insignificant enough to be unaffected by the spell, Arthur couldn't take the chance. So he had given Gaius a horse and supplies and an escort of half a dozen of his men and sent them all to another village until the full moon passed. Still, it had hurt to see Gaius leaving, as though Arthur had _banished_ him…if it hadn't been for Gaius, Arthur wouldn't have even known that there was anything particularly wrong.

But there _was_ something wrong, and Gaius had read the signs that everyone else had missed. Someone, some sorcerer—probably a sorcer_ess_, Arthur thought, knowing his history—had cast a spell over Camelot. Gaius hadn't been able to properly explain how he or she had managed it; apparently, the spell would take a great deal of power to cast and maintain. And then he'd gone off on some speech about talismans and totems and death that Arthur stopped listening to, preoccupied by the implications of this spell. Gaius said that it was a spell that forced all those possessing magic to temporarily lose their free will and adhere to that of he—or she—who had cast the spell. The enchantment would be focused so that those affected would be united in a single purpose. In this case, Gaius supposed, those with magic would be manipulated into attacking the citadel. When Arthur had pointed out that, even counting those among his people who _had_ magic but suppressed it in secret for the sake of their own survival, there couldn't be very many who could do any harm to his castle, Gaius had shaken his head, warning Arthur not to think of fighting against sorcerers the same way that he thought of fighting against soldiers. Against magic, swords and spears lacked the same danger that they did against regular men. Gaius couldn't have said what exactly the perimeter would have been for sorcerers within to be affected, but he said that he was sure that the spell could only be in full effect on the last day before and last night of a moon cycle. If they could just last until dawn…

So Arthur had ordered a reluctant evacuation for the day and sent Gaius away, instructing him privately that—if he knew of any servants or knights in the castle who happened to possess magic secretly—he should take them with him, even if he couldn't tell Arthur, for everyone's safety. Gaius had looked so taken aback and truly shaken by Arthur's instruction that Arthur had almost wished that Merlin had been in Camelot for to go with Gaius, just so that the old man might have someone close to lean upon. This stress couldn't have been good for him.

But then again, even if Merlin _had_ been there, if he _had_ returned from his errand to one of the outlying villages before any of this had come to light, Arthur still probably wouldn't have sent Merlin with the physician. Gaius would have escorts…and Arthur would need Merlin. He didn't know how, exactly, but he would need Merlin for _something._

As it happened, Arthur was spared the dilemma of allowing Gaius the company of his surrogate son or keeping him by his own side. Merlin returned from his trip to fetch herbs collected and dried specially by a woman in an outlying village shortly _after_ Gaius had departed. From the look on Merlin's face when he returned to Arthur, he'd been fairly confused to see the controlled chaos as people were abandoning their posts and heading for the forest, having left on his errand before the sun had properly risen that morning. Arthur didn't have the _chance_ to ask if Merlin was confused, however. Merlin happened to walk into the council chambers just as Arthur was briefing his chief knights on the particulars of the situation, many of which had been withheld from the public for fear of spreading panic. While most servants probably would have been mortified and apologetic at having barged in on an intimate meeting between the king and his closest advisors, Merlin had just given a mildly conciliatory wave and taken his place behind Arthur, not even bothering to look as though he wasn't eavesdropping. Arthur was past caring. Merlin eavesdropping would save Arthur the trouble of having to repeat it all again to him later in private. The knights were all accustomed to it anyway.

So Merlin had stood in the background, listening intently as Arthur told his men of the spell that had been cast, the spell that would turn the mind of every magic possessor within a certain unknown perimeter against the king and Camelot. He'd sensed Merlin tensing nervously at the information and nearly rolled his eyes. Merlin was such a coward about magic! But Arthur had more important things to do than tease his servant for his fears. He told his men that all sorcerers—even if they happened to live the quiet lives of regular people and did not practice their magic—would attack at full power, whether they liked it or not, voicing Gaius' theory that whoever had cast this spell had chosen it for the purpose of pointedly inflicting upon Arthur the power that the Pendragons had expended so much time and energy eradicating to the most violent of extremes.

His men took it all in stride, although Arthur saw that none of them were particularly inclined to argue in favor of remaining at the castle. Entering into a siege against an army was one thing; entering into a siege against unknown sorcery was a potential disaster. Evacuation of the castle was the safest measure. Arthur had learned to his dismay that being king meant choosing safety; risks were for princes. Yes, everyone seemed to take it all in stride.

That is, they all seemed to take it in stride until Arthur closed the meeting by mentioning that Gaius had said that the spell would take effect at sundown. No sooner had those words left his mouth than did Merlin rush out of the room. From the brief look that he got of his face, Arthur saw that Merlin's eyes were wide and panicky, and it was then that Arthur realized that Merlin hadn't been present when Arthur had mentioned that this all was going to happen _today._ Arthur had already had time to absorb the danger, and the calmness with which he was addressing the men had apparently lessened the sense of urgency in Merlin. Even the evacuation didn't seem too harried at that point. So when Merlin had heard that they only had until sundown…Arthur supposed that Merlin was allowed a moment of panic. His greatest fear was sorcery, and Arthur couldn't begrudge him the instinct to avoid it altogether. The shock of knowing that these magic attacks would occur in a matter of hours was sure to take him aback. So he'd assumed that Merlin had rushed out to get some fresh air or vomit or scream until he cleared his mind. He'd _assumed_ that Merlin would be back shortly.

Curious, Arthur had trailed after Merlin after dismissing the knights, the briefing concluded anyway. Merlin was not waiting in the anteroom or even walking back. He must have been truly shaken, Arthur realized, not yet frantic enough at the situation to be dismissive of Merlin's state of mind. So he'd walked to the long outdoor corridor that overlooked the castle courtyard, a rarely used hallway in which he knew that Merlin sometimes took the breaks that he decided to allot for himself.

Merlin wasn't there. Arthur had sighed and run his hands through his hair before looking out over the courtyard, watching as the final civilian workers hastened from the semicircle toward the paths that would lead them away from the castle. Even with the headstart of nearly six hours, Arthur was somewhat surprised that there wasn't at least a bit of panicky rushing amongst them. He was oddly proud of their comportment, even as he knew that even _he_ couldn't take credit for their fortitude. He had smiled to himself.

And he had kept smiling to himself for nearly half of a second, before there was a clattering of hooves, somehow amplified into echoes in the emptied courtyard, as a horse was driven hard across the stones and out of the gate, not yet heaved shut. It was Merlin. It was Merlin on _Arthur's horse,_ the poor beast already nearly frothing at the mouth. Arthur had opened his mouth to shout but hadn't even had the chance to get past the inhalation before Merlin was past the wall, the furious pace of the horse having carried him faster than it should have had to. The only time that Merlin turned and gave Arthur a full view of his face, grim and serious and somehow alien in its determination on his face, was when Merlin reined the horse, digging his heels in and turning it. Merlin looked at the gates, still ajar, and seemed to be speaking at them. Arthur didn't know why the hell Merlin would be doing _that,_ although he supposed that he might have mistaken it for Merlin speaking to the horse. The afternoon light was shining into Arthur's eyes and what little lipreading skills that he possessed were failing him; from the way that Merlin's mouth moved, Arthur couldn't identify any of the words. It must have been the sunlight, Arthur told himself. And Merlin was speaking to the horse, surely. Why the hell would Merlin be talking to the gates and walls? Arthur was just tired.

Then Merlin was gone and Arthur didn't have any vision to wonder at.

Arthur hadn't known how he felt about the whole thing. There was the anger at the abandonment, the anger that Merlin would steal _Arthur's_ horse, the anger that Merlin was apparently set on driving the poor thing half to death in his haste to flee the city. There was the disappointment that Merlin, who had stood by his side in so many more dangerous situations, didn't have it in him to stay this time. There was the pity that Merlin had so instinctively fled. And there was a curiosity that Arthur couldn't quite place, a knowledge that none of this fit what he knew of Merlin's character and that there had to be more to what was happening than what it seemed…but that hadn't been the proper time for feeling. So, he'd cursed at an invisible Merlin, said a silent prayer for his horse—which he was certain that Merlin had taken because it was by far the fastest in the stable—and set off to find his wife.

So now they were up in the tower and the sun was blazing the orange that meant that it was on the verge of setting and there wasn't much else to do but _feel._ Arthur wished that night would hurry up and fall so that he could keep watch for attacking sorcerers without having to think about his feelings.

He wished Merlin was there, and he didn't like thinking about that either.

Fortunately, the orange of the end of the day soon turned into a purpling dimness that meant that soon there would be only starlight for Arthur to be able to see anything. They couldn't even have a torch up in their tower; the light would give away their position immediately. Still, Arthur knew that his eyes would adjust quickly enough.

The sun wasn't wholly set before the first showed up.

Arthur recognized her, and wished with all of his heart that he hadn't. She was a shopkeeper from the lower village. She sold cloth or candles or some other harmless thing. Arthur couldn't recall her name—he'd probably never known it—but he remembered her kind eyes from his tours through the lower village. He couldn't even recall their color...only the kindness with which she had regarded him. The way that she'd looked at him made him ache in a way that made him wish—even now, as a grown man and king—that he had had a mother. Oh, how he wished that he hadn't recognized her…

But her eyes weren't kindly. Not then. They weren't anything that Arthur recognized. They were…gold, and Arthur had shivered. He had seen the glimmer of brightness in the eyes of sorcerers as they had done magic in the past, of course, but it was always fleeting, a sort of unnatural twinkling that was just brief enough to be unsettling rather than frightening. But now…her eyes didn't fade back into brown or blue or whatever they ought to have been. They didn't become kindly. They were just…gold, unchanging and steady. In the darkness, it was one of the eeriest sights that Arthur had ever seen. In the back of his mind, he wondered if he would have thought this beautiful if it had happened in a time before the Purge.

It wasn't long before a handful of others joined her. Fortunately, it was dark enough that Arthur could focus on their silhouettes and unceasingly glowing eyes-some of which seemed brighter than others, which Arthur guessed had to do with levels of power-without trying to recognize who they were. Together, six of them, they stood before the solid iron gates, arms extended with palms at a right angle, staring straight ahead. A few sparks began to jump from the bars and the hinges, and Arthur understood: they couldn't get through the gates. He'd heaved a sigh of relief, exhaling a breath that he hadn't realized that he'd been holding. But something seemed off, and it nagged at him. Why couldn't they get through the gates? He could have understood if maybe the kindly woman hadn't been able to do it on her own. After all, he _did_ know that sorcerers varied in power. But there were half a dozen of them now. Glad as he was that they hadn't breached the wall, Arthur squirmed with a sense of vague discomfort. Why couldn't they break the gate? It was only iron…and even if they couldn't scale the walls, the impromptu spikes erected hurriedly on top apparently serving their intended purpose, they should have made it in by now. This was _good,_ Arthur knew, but it wasn't right…

More came, wandering down the main road of the lower town on unsteady legs, staggering. From what Arthur could see of their garb, they were farmfolk. They had walked from outside the town. The perimeter apparently stretched beyond the town of Camelot.

The greyness of evening turned to the blue of night, and more came, eyes glowing enough to allow Arthur to maintain a sense of their numbers. He looked anxiously for Gaius, hoping that he'd gotten far enough from the citadel to have avoided becoming one of the attackers. Arthur wouldn't have held it against him, but he knew that Gaius wouldn't be quite so forgiving of himself. Fortunately, even as the gaggle of sorcerers attempting to break through the gate grew into a full dozen, Gaius was still absent.

More sparks flew with the twelve working at the same purpose, and he heard the gates rattle on their hinges from time to time. They were assembled with a sort of disarming precision, in three rows of four, forming a solid block of twelve. There was a sort of hushed humming that Arthur couldn't place for nearly half of an hour before it occurred to him that what he was hearing was the language of the Old Religion that the sorcerers were using, speaking in eerie unison the same spell to break the gate. As soon as he made the realization, Arthur wished that he hadn't. Even as he didn't understand them, he could not unhear the repeated streams of words, and he wanted to cover his ears.

He wasn't sure how long he stood there, watching and listening and wishing that he would do the smart thing for once and sit the hell down and hold his wife's hand and wait patiently for the night to end. All he knew was that night had fully fallen and the moon was bright and the stars all apparent by the time that the thirteenth person came upon the scene.

Despite the unlikelihood of the situation, Arthur recognized him at once, even with his face downcast and facing the ground as he walked.

"Merlin," he breathed, somehow terribly uneasy at the reappearance. It wasn't entirely atypical of Merlin to have a change of heart and choose his devotion to Arthur over his own fears, and it certainly shouldn't have surprised him that Merlin would risk sorcery and walk right up to the castle. Arthur could even concede that there was some logic in the straightforwardness of Merlin's return; these sorcerers had been directed to attack Arthur and Camelot and were not permitted deviation. Merlin was probably safe.

But from the way that he walked, his steps determined and even, almost _stalking,_ Merlin didn't look as though he was bothering to even be cautious. Arthur knew that Merlin was loyal to Arthur to the point of stupidity, but a bit of skulking and stealth wouldn't have hurt. Although _how_ Merlin thought that he was going to get into the castle was beyond Arthur…

That wasn't the only thing that was wrong, and it took a moment for Arthur to realize the oddity. Merlin had fled on horseback, but he was now on foot. The horse must have thrown a shoe or gone lame somehow. Just because he was the king's horse and treated with more care and consideration than most of the people in Camelot didn't meant that something could have happen and lamed the poor thing. It wasn't as though Merlin would have dismounted and tied the horse so that he'd have to walk back to Camelot. That would take so much more time, and Merlin would surely make haste if he were to return to Arthur…

What good did Merlin think that he could do? Arthur appreciated the gesture, and it was certainly enough for him to begin thinking about forgiving Merlin the afternoon's flight from the citadel, but it didn't make sense. Despite Arthur's vocal insistences to the contrary, the king knew that Merlin wasn't an idiot. Surely Merlin would have known that he wouldn't have been much help to Arthur at this point, even if he _could_ find a way in without letting any of the sorcerers in as well. What on earth was he thinking?

As Merlin approached the gate, his gait still unwavering, the dozen sorcerers stopped speaking for the first time in hours. As one they all turned to face the approaching Merlin. Arthur's heart turned cold. It was only out of concern for Guinevere and a knowledge that it wouldn't have done any good anyway that Arthur was able to keep himself from breaking cover and shouting out a warning. Yet even in his fear for Merlin, something was wrong. Why were the sorcerers acknowledging Merlin's presence? They'd been impervious to all other interruptions.

Reasons began to fly through Arthur's mind, rationalizing even as he leaned out the window, wanting Merlin to be alright. They sensed someone coming at them from behind and assumed that he meant to do them ill, so they would attack him. They thought that he might be another sorcerer approaching and turned to welcome him, but they would see that he was not and so they would attack him. They would recognize him as Arthur's servant and recall the closeness that had become rather infamous across the five kingdoms and, in lieu of an available king, so they would attack him. They would do this, they would do that, they would do this and that, and so they would attack him, and Arthur couldn't do a damn thing about it beyond lean out that window and wish that somehow his proximity would give Merlin the strength of mind to come to his senses and run.

Then, for the first time since his silhouette had appeared, Merlin looked up. And Arthur nearly fell out of the window.

Merlin's eyes were golden, blazing somehow much more brightly than all of the other sorcerers' eyes, although Arthur distantly thought that he must have just been imagining the difference out of his surprise.

Instantly, Arthur started frantically rationalizing once more. Gaius had been wrong and the spell affected everyone and Merlin had been caught and he was normal and it wasn't his fault. This wasn't Merlin and the sorcerers had conjured up a doppleganger in the hopes that Arthur would open the gates for him and Merlin was normal and it wasn't his fault. This was a trick, designed to frighten Arthur out of hiding, and Merlin was normal and it wasn't his fault. It was too dark and Arthur was wrong and it wasn't Merlin because Merlin was normal and it wasn't his fault. This wasn't Merlin because it couldn't be Merlin because Merlin was normal and this couldn't be his fault. It just couldn't.

But Arthur knew.

The spell hadn't affected any other normal people; Merlin couldn't be the exception. But no sorcerers should have bothered casting this massive spell if they could just make a copy of Merlin; Merlin had practically full access to the king, and a doppleganger Merlin wouldn't have had trouble finding a way to kill Arthur. But it couldn't be a trick, because Arthur wasn't an _idiot_ and, as infamous as was the bond between the pair, no one thought so little of Arthur to assume that he'd open the gate for every wayward servant who chose such an inopportune moment to return. But this couldn't not be Merlin, because Arthur knew Merlin, he _knew_ Merlin, and this was Merlin, and so Merlin wasn't normal and this inopportune return and these glowing eyes must have been his fault.

Mustn't they?

Merlin had magic. Didn't that eclipse everything else? Wasn't the magic more than Merlin? Everything was changed now, surely. Merlin wasn't the same anymore. _Arthur_ wasn't the same anymore. It was all changed, all different, and there was nothing that anyone could do about it and…

A shiver ran through Arthur's whole body, and he came back to himself enough to inch his way back into the safety of the windowsill. He hadn't been able to blink since he'd first seen the gold in Merlin's eyes, and he was distantly aware that he was tearing up in the cold night air.

Still, Arthur did not blink. And he sure as hell didn't look away.

And because he didn't look away, he saw as the dozen sorcerers parted for Merlin, bowing their heads in something that so resembled an absurd show of respect that Arthur nearly laughed aloud. His heart was beating very quickly.

Merlin stood, flanked by six sorcerers on each side. He hadn't looked at any of them and seemed almost oblivious to their presence as he positioned himself in front of the heavy iron gates. He just remained standing, stock still, and closed his eyes for what felt to Arthur like an eternity.

Then he opened his eyes, and in that instant, Arthur realized why the other sorcerers hadn't been able to break down the gates, and he knew that he had not been wrong when he had seen Merlin speaking to the gates earlier that afternoon. Merlin had enchanted the gates to keep them closed against magic. Arthur was sure of it.

Then, just as Arthur realized the implications of that possibility, Merlin's eyes somehow glowed even more brightly gold. He pointed one hand in front of him, fingertips quivering. He never said a word.

And the gates blasted off of their hinges, screeching with painful volume as they skidded across the courtyard, tearing up chunks of stone and drawing sparks as they did.

"Oh," said Arthur, very softly.

Instantly, Guinevere was at his side at the window, and Arthur felt the two guards hovering behind them. Of course. They had heard the destruction of the gates. Hell, the hiding knights and peasants in the middle of the forest had probably heard it.

"What?" hissed Guinevere, clearly laboring to keep her voice low and not betray their position and she elbowed him for a better look. "What on earth—"

Then she saw Merlin.

"Oh," said Guinevere. She began to shake, but Arthur couldn't bring himself to try to give her any comfort. He just couldn't. Too much else was happening, and his brain was fighting with itself, trying desperately to focus on two very important things at the same time. There was so much danger that he couldn't focus on what was worst...

_Merlin has magic, _he thought.

_The gates are open, _he remembered.

_Merlin has magic. _

_The gates are open._

_Merlin has magic and the gates are open…_

Arthur's breath caught in his throat, and he was just about to give in and weep or shout or curse or throw something or do whatever he needed to do to deal with Merlin having magic, even in the knowledge that Merlin having magic was the less pressing of his issues, when he registered the sight of the first twelve sorcerers streaming past the threshold, all still staggering unsteadily and all heading in random directions across the grounds. But that thirteenth sorcerer, _Merlin…_he crossed the threshold without so much as swaying, and he strode purposely across the damaged courtyard, magically hurling open the front doors to the palace and entering without a moment's hesitation.

And then, all at once, a single thought overcame all of the others in his mind in an instant of terrible clarity. Merlin knew the castle and Merlin knew Arthur and, even though Arthur could count on one hand all of the people who knew about this tower, Merlin was one of them and he knew where Arthur would go in a situation like this.

Arthur took several deep breaths. It didn't matter that Merlin had magic, even if he was powerful enough to stop all of the others from breaking down the gates and then powerful enough to bust them to pieces with a blink. Well, in a way, that was _all_ that mattered just then, but he could focus on how he hadn't _known_ about Merlin's magic and the lengths to which Merlin must have gone to keep the secret at some later time. Right now, it didn't matter so much that Merlin had broken a few laws and a few confidences. That was hardly the important point just then. The point was that Merlin wasn't himself and Merlin was dangerous.

Guinevere seemed to realize it as well. She turned and looked at Arthur, and he could see out of the corner of his eye the sharpness of her features. The worry. The fear. Then, after a moment of gazing at her husband, her face softened, and she took a deep breath.

"Arthur?" she asked, putting her hand in his. He appreciated the warmth, and he squeezed desperately, needing to hold onto something. "What do you want us to do?"

A rush of gratitude rushed through him, loving her for how she loved him enough to know that the only way that he would be able to get through this was to put on his figurative crown and be a king and be a bossy leader and pretend that he wasn't upset about his friend and too confused to just be a man.

Still, he didn't know how to answer her question. He didn't _want_ them to do anything. Except maybe wake up from a communal dream. But he knew that he was awake and that this was real and he needed to make a decision.

Arthur closed his eyes, knowing that Merlin had enchanted the gates to try to keep him safe, knowing that Merlin had fled that afternoon not to keep his own secret but to protect Arthur from his own powers, knowing that Merlin was on foot because he'd left the horse on purpose to slow any possible return to the castle, knowing that Merlin had done what he could to protect them from himself...and knowing that, just then, Merlin wasn't Merlin. Merlin didn't have his own mind. But Merlin was powerful, Merlin knew where they were, and Merlin was too powerful…

And Merlin was coming for them.

The king opened his eyes.

"Arthur?" said Guinevere, softly prompting once more. "What do we do?"

"What do we do?" repeated Arthur, suddenly very calm. "I suppose that we run."

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**Thank you for reading, and please review! **


	2. And Backwards

**Disclaimer: _Merlin _is not** **mine. **

As it turned out, "running" was easier said than done.

It wasn't as though the physical aspect was presenting them any challenges; he and his three companions were all reasonably young and fit. The only one of them who might pose a problem was Guinevere, and that was only because her gown was laced so tightly up her back and around her abdomen that breathing heavily wasn't much of an option. Still, they could manage. They _could_ do it.

The only real problem was that Arthur didn't know how they should go about doing it. This was hardly the first time that his castle had been invaded by people intending to do him harm, but the invader had never had quite so much familiarity as Merlin did. Granted, Morgana had lived in the castle far longer by the time that _she_ attacked, but it wasn't so much Merlin's familiarity with the surroundings as much as his familiarity with _Arthur_ that was troubling.

Arthur's first instincts were to do the exact opposite of his established emergency protocols, off of which Merlin was certainly basing his pursuit. But then it had occurred to him that it might have occurred to Merlin that Arthur had seen him breaking down the gates and was therefore planning on thwarting Merlin by doing the opposite of the emergency protocols. So maybe they should just stay in the tower. But then, maybe Merlin would realize that Arthur would anticipate Merlin's anticipating of Arthur's modified plan and Merlin would come straight to the tower. Plus, whatever they did, there were still other sorcerers running all over the castle…it was all very confusing.

It was so very confusing that Arthur was seriously considering just planting himself in the hallway outside of the tower to wait for Merlin to round the corner. He would then conk Merlin on the head with the hilt of his sword. No matter what powers Merlin may have possessed, Arthur had seen him unconscious on more than one occasion; surely a good old-fashioned whack to the head would take Merlin out of commission long enough for them to make their flight to the woods.

Unfortunately, Arthur was not nearly sure enough of that "surely" to risk the lives of his wife and men on its merit. As much as the hit-the-overwhelmingly-powerful-sorcerer-with-a-blunt-object felt like the most masterful of the plans that he'd come up with and as willing as he was to risk his own life in the attempt, he couldn't help but think that perhaps the other three in his party might disagree. They were probably all judging him anyway on the fact that he'd managed to go a decade with Merlin almost always at his side without noticing that he just so happened to have _magic._

Then something occurred to him, and he momentarily lost perspective on the gravity of the situation in his indignation. Perhaps there was more of a reason than his own obliviousness that he hadn't noticed Merlin's magic. Perhaps Merlin had some sort of memory-erasing spell that he frequently used on the king, violating him is such a mental capacity that it chilled him to the bone…perhaps Merlin liked to slip Arthur some sort of befuddling potion that made him forget all of the magical transgressions…or maybe he transfixed Arthur with a terrible hypnosis that bent the king to his will, forcing the king to lose the memories…_or _maybe he magically entranced Arthur so that he was unaware of his surroundings and so would not notice Merlin's sorcery…

Or maybe he just conked Arthur over the head with a blunt object.

Arthur scowled at the thought, wishing that he hadn't begun to think about it. Almost unconsciously, he began to add up all of the times that he'd woken up from unconsciousness with a terrible headache, a lump on his head, blood in his hair, and Merlin leaned over him in concern and ready with what now seemed rather unlikely explanations for how he'd gotten into such a state.

Somehow, that was much more embarrassing than the prospect of a memory-erasing spell or a potion or hypnosis or entrancing. Blows to the head..._lots_ of blows to the head…a decade of blows to the head...For heaven's sake, his skull was probably misshaped by now.

"That explains why my crown is so uncomfortable," Arthur said under his breath.

"Arthur?" A voice suddenly broke in, interrupting the various names that Arthur was calling Merlin in his head. His wife was addressing him, apparently more preoccupied by their immediate predicament than was Arthur just then.

"What?" he snapped, more harshly than he intended.

Guinevere winced for a moment before a steely glint appeared in her eye. "Arthur, we need a plan. You said that we need to run. Where would you have us run?"

Arthur shook his head, bringing himself back to the situation. He could focus on Merlin's cranial attacks later. That is, he could focus on them later if he didn't end up dying this night. Or maybe he _couldn't_ focus on them because of all the times that he'd been _hit_ over the _head_ and _knocked unconscious _was now an _idiot_ and his brain didn't even _work _properly because Merlin was a lying son of a…

"_Arthur!"_

"Right," said Arthur, more loudly and with all of the authority that he could muster. "We need to…"

Realizing too late that he didn't actually have a plan and that he probably should have found a way to stall before beginning a sentence indicating that he had any idea what they should do, he decided to just go with his instincts and say whatever was the first thing that popped into his mind.

"We need to split up," he blurted out, wondering even as he spoke where the hell _that_ idea had come from.

"What?" asked Guinevere, looking as though she was trying very hard to be patient with him. Her fingers twitched in what Arthur hoped was nerves or frustration rather than any sort of urge to swat him in the head. If there was an aggressive attack to _that_ particular area by this point, he'd probably start bleeding from the ears and develop a facial tic.

"We need to split up," said Arthur again, and then he realized. He nearly smiled; it was strangely validating that, even as he had become accustomed to the ways in which a king is obligated to do just about everything with the input of a council, his instincts still served him well enough in times of stress.

"Why on earth would we split up?" asked Guinevere incredulously. From the looks on the guards' faces, they agreed with the queen. Unfortunately, lacking the position as Arthur's wife, they didn't have quite the same amount of freedom to question Arthur more ridiculous-sounding proposals. That was actually part of why Arthur liked having guards around. Unquestioning acquiescence was also very validating.

"Because Merlin knows me," said Arthur, beginning to get excited. "I've been trying to think of some maneuver that we could do, some secret strategy to outsmart him. But he _knows_ me, and he'll probably end up doing whatever I do. He'll find us, and I have no doubt of that."

Guinevere didn't say anything, although Arthur recognized the warning signs as she crossed her arms over her chest and raised her eyebrows, averting her gaze in an attempt to retain her patience. He hastily continued.

"He'll find _me,"_ Arthur amended. "But maybe if I'm random enough, I can hold him off until dawn and he's normal again and I can kill him for being a stupid lying traitorous…traitor."

Guinevere's eyes flicked toward his face, looking alarmed at Arthur's words. Then, she seemed to correctly interpret that Arthur's threat had been more spiteful than genuine. Arthur wouldn't kill him the instant that he was Merlin again. Or _try_ to kill him, anyway.

Arthur didn't like thinking about the unlikelihood of his managing to kill even a normal Merlin in a fight that did not involve him sneaking up on his manservant, so he kept speaking. "But either way, I'm not going to risk your life—your _lives,"_ Arthur corrected himself, nodding at his two men. "I'm not going to risk your lives on a plan like this. I'll just run around and leave a trail that Merlin would recognize—don't ask me how I plan on doing that, because I haven't figured that out just yet—and have him chasing me all over until the sun rises. It will give you time to make it out of the castle and to the woods with the others."

"But what if Merlin finds you?" she whispered, real fear beginning to overcome her features, and distracted as he was, he felt a distant sort of pride in the fact that she was so readily disregarding any fears about her own well-being for concerns about someone else's. Still...

"Don't worry," Arthur muttered belligerently. "He'll probably just smack me over the head with a stick. Then he'll wake me up in the morning and tell me that a troll did it or something."

"What?" She was beginning to pale, and he resolved to stop spitting out every random complaint about Merlin that popped into his head and _had_ to sound apropos of nothing to anyone not privy to his current suspicions regarding his head.

"Nothing. Look, if he finds me, I'll try to reason with him. Merlin still had to be in there somewhere," said Arthur forcefully. Perhaps if he could convince her, he could convince himself of the fact...

"But what if he isn't?" she asked, still very quiet.

Arthur shrugged, trying to look nonchalant. "That's why we have to split up. King and queen can't both be lost. One of us needs to make it out, for the sake of the people. And I'm sorry, Guinevere, but of the two of us, I think that Merlin is more likely to go after me. And I think that I might be more likely to get through to him."

Guinevere snorted, color beginning to return to her face. "You _think?"_ she asked, affectionate exasperation in her voice. "Yes, Arthur, I imagine that you might be the likely one to get through to him."

Arthur chose to take this as acceptance of his plan. "Alright, you three need to leave. Now. Don't tell me where you're going. And don't take the east corridor. I'm taking the east corridor. You," he said, looking at his men. "Do as the queen commands. Her words are mine."

They nodded and, seeing the expression on Arthur's face as he looked now at his wife, turned away with a discretion that Arthur would not have imagined them possessing.

He and Guinevere just looked at each other for a moment before she took a step toward him, clearly intending to embrace him. He stepped back and gently put his hands on her shoulders, stopping her. "No goodbyes," he said lightly, knowing that the last thing that he could handle just then was any sort of kindness.

She seemed to understand, and the look of hurt that had briefly flashed across her face was immediately replaced by a grim sort of determination, and he remembered again why he loved her.

Then she turned and ran, holding her skirts above her feet. The guards followed after her.

Arthur watched, suddenly terribly uncertain, until they were out of sight. Was this a good plan, or were they all going to be dead before dawn? Merlin wasn't the only dangerous sorcerer prowling these hallways. If Guinevere met any of the others…

He shook his head. It was done, the decision made. Worrying about them wouldn't do him any good. Not when he had his own role to play. He looked down the east corridor, took a deep breath, drew Excalibur from its sheath, and began to run.

It only took him a few random turns into various hallways for him to begin to feel silly. He felt as he did when he and Morgana would chase one another through the castle as children. He was faster, but she was sneakier. Or, as she liked to phrase it, he was the brawn while she was the brain. Either way, Arthur's strategy was almost always the same: put as much distance as he could manage between where he had left Morgana and himself. It had usually worked, and he'd be proud of himself.

But Morana hadn't been a powerful sorcerer hell bent on his destruction. And Arthur had known where Morgana was before he'd started running. And Arthur had known that Morgana had the reason of a person with her own mind. Besides, they had been children. His strategy didn't seem quite so foolproof as it had when he was eight years old.

Yet he ran on. He ran, rubbing his neck at the ache that came from the frequency with which he turned to look behind him for a pursuer and trying to hear over his own heavy breathing, listening for footsteps echoing toward him. He had eyes to look forward; he only hoped that his ears would serve well enough to cover him from behind.

Unfortunately, his faith in his ears—ever receding as the blood begun to pump painfully through his brain at the exertion and what was probably a malfunctioning brain _anyway_ thanks to a certain sorcerer—failed him, and it was as he was turning back for another glance behind him that the attack came from the front.

It didn't even hurt at first, and it was only as he was flying backward through the air that he realized that he had been racing through the same outdoor corridor on which he'd been standing when he'd first seen Merlin racing away upon Arthur's horse, only that afternoon. There was something darkly appropriate about where this was happening.

When Arthur hit the wall behind him, the breath was knocked out of him, and he was doubled over for a few seconds before he recovered enough to seek out his attacker. He had dropped his sword when he'd been thrown, the unexpected blow knocking Excalibur from the hands trembling from the sprinting. He found that he didn't even mind. He knew, somehow, that it wouldn't matter. What good was steel against sorcery?

Still, Arthur drew a dagger from within his boot and waited. He wouldn't die without a weapon in his hand.

After a moment, a figured appeared over him, standing in the shadows and looking down at him. The man swayed, and Arthur wondered distantly if the attack had taken something out of him. That made sense, didn't it? Arthur was worn out from blows that _he_ inflicted upon others; surely it had to be the same for sorcery. Still, the swaying didn't give him any hope. Arthur's last deliberate thought before he garnered the courage to look up at his face was that he was terribly glad that he'd sent Guinevere away.

In the back of his mind, Arthur realized with a terrible sadness that looking up at the face of the sorcerer standing above him would have been so much easier if it was a stranger rather than the man whom he had trusted and befriended above most—and perhaps _all—_others. If only it wasn't _him,_ if only this final blow was coming from a man who had never smiled at Arthur and had never laughed with—or at—Arthur, who had never stayed by Arthur's side when all sense should have sent him running in the opposite direction, who had never earned so very much of Arthur's faith that there was now an emptiness and shame that Arthur had never before felt, who had never ever been assigned as his manservant in the first place…if only it could have been someone else. Anyone else. The dying wasn't even so bad, but if only it couldn't have been _Merlin…_

Still, Arthur was no coward and, with all of the courage and will that he could muster, he raised his head to look into the face of the man that would be the last that he would ever see, hoping despite himself that he would see some sign of familiarity in that face, hoping that there was something of Merlin in him still…Arthur raised his head to look at his eyes, remembering the blue of Merlin…

But when Arthur looked into his face, he saw only the gold of a sorcerer.

And, before it happened, before it all ended, before it was all over, there was just enough time for Arthur's heart to break.

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**This was originally half of another longer chapter, but I got excited and decided to post it now. If there's interest, I'll keep going. Or I might just keep going anyway. I like this one. :)**

**Thank you for reading, and please review! **


	3. Upside Down

**Disclaimer: _Merlin_ is not**** mine.**

He missed.

Arthur didn't even realize it at first. After he had seen that those eyes had been a color that they should not have been, after he had realized what it meant, Arthur had shut his eyes. It was bad enough looking into a gaze that should have been something so very different; Arthur didn't think that he could have borne seeing the expression—or worse, _lack_ of expression—on Merlin's face as he struck the final blow. Granted, there wouldn't exactly have been much time for him to bear it before he was killed, but still. If he was going to die at Merlin's hand, he would rather not see it. He could have faced it if it were anyone else. He hadn't had time to steel himself for the inevitable coming at the hands of the least likely person that there was.

Yet when he felt a rush of wind at his side, felt the impact next to his head, winced at the spray of rocks that scraped at his cheek, Arthur opened his eyes, unable to help himself. That was when he saw it.

Merlin had _missed._

Merlin had been two feet away, and he had missed, and it was all so ridiculous that Arthur almost laughed aloud. It was only his knowledge that that one miss certainly didn't mean that Merlin couldn't just take another shot at him that helped him contain himself and behave like someone who wasn't a complete idiot. It was a temporary reprieve, Arthur knew, so he couldn't see what would be the point of celebrating it.

Then Arthur's vision adjusted in the shadows, giving him his first good look at Merlin.

And Arthur laughed aloud. He laughed and he laughed and he kept laughing until his side hurt and his eyes were blurred with tears and he could just barely register that this wasn't really all that funny.

But it _was,_ in a way. The missing of the magical attack had been only slightly silly; but this? _This_ was ridiculous.

It wasn't even Merlin.

So Arthur laughed.

Now that he got a closer look, he saw that this man didn't even resemble Merlin, save perhaps for the fact that he shared a gender. Merlin was tall; this man was taller, by nearly a head. Merlin was slender, but Merlin was the sort of slender that came naturally to him. Merlin liked to say that he couldn't be fat if he tried. This man, however…he had the skinniness of a man who lived by the skin of his teeth. Merlin was well enough fed by Gaius and what he snaked from the meals that he fetched for Arthur from the castle kitchens. This man was a peasant, probably a farmer. His hair was also lighter than Merlin's, a sort of brown that would have been a shade exactly between Arthur's and Merlin's, about the shade that would probably befit a child that Guinevere said that they would have produced by now if one of them had possessed the proper child-producing organs. A few days of a beard covered peasant sorcerer's lower face and, as the collar of his shirt shifted, Arthur saw that there was a significant disparity in the dark tan of his neck and arms in contrast to the paleness concealed beneath his clothing. Yes, Arthur thought distantly, this was a farmer.

And it wasn't Merlin.

After a few moments, however, it occurred to Arthur that it was slightly strange that this peasant sorcerer wasn't taking a closer aim and killing Arthur. The force that had gouged a crater into the wall made it plain that he certainly did not lack the power; why on earth would he be allowing Arthur to laugh himself into a stomachache when he could have been doing something far more sensible like blowing up his head?

Arthur stopped laughing like an a man lacking lacking all of the wits beyond those that controlled breathing and basic speech, and he took a closer look. The skinny sorcerer, who had already been swaying when he had taken his first shot, was now leaning heavily on a small cart that someone had left in the corridor, breathing very hard. His eyes still glowed golden, however, and when Arthur shifted his body into a position that would allow him to flee before the attacker would regain his strength, the sorcerer propped himself up more sturdily and extended a hand toward Arthur. The attack had clearly taken a lot out of the sorcerer, and a tiny flame of hope ignited in Arthur's chest. If this sorcerer could just miss once more, he would almost certainly be too incapacitated to stop Arthur from making an escape. Or at least striking a few blows of his own. He still had the dagger…

Then, with a wet cough, the sorcerer stood up tall once more. Taken aback at the swiftness of the recovery, Arthur tried to tense himself to tackle the skinny man.

The sorcerer reached a hand in Arthur's direction, trembling at the extension, steadied only into what was an aim that would certainly kill Arthur when he raised his other hand to support it.

Arthur clenched his fingers around the hilt of his tagger and prepared to launch forward, almost quivering. He had to wait for the perfect moment, he knew. He had to wait until the sorcerer was about to attack, when he was pooling his strength and temporarily vulnerable. He just had to wait…

Then, so very suddenly that it never occurred to Arthur to do anything with his dagger or even make a run for it, the sorcerer was blasted off of his feet, flying backward away from the king with such force that, when he hit the railing that separated the corridor from the courtyard below, he flipped over it and fell, taking a bit of the railing with him. Arthur didn't hear him hit, but he knew that, at best, the skinny sorcerer would wake to himself at dawn with a pair of very broken legs. Of course, his back had almost certainly broken when he'd hit the stone railing…at worst, the skinny sorcerer wouldn't be waking at all.

Arthur didn't hear him hit, because he was too busy yanking the cart upon which the skinny sorcerer had been leaning so that it covered him from whoever had struck down his attacker. He knew that it didn't conceal him; even if whoever this savior was hadn't had the sense to realize what the skinny man was doing, it would take a blind man not to notice a cart suddenly changing positions in an otherwise abandoned hallway.

Also, it was a _cart,_ so Arthur was partially visible between the legs and upper and lower platforms. But it felt better than nothing.

Besides, he was more than a little bit confused. Someone had saved him from the attacking sorcerer and, while he was grateful for the fact that he wasn't dead just yet, there was no avoiding the truth that was this rescue had not been from the slash of a sword or the toss of a spear or the bolt of a crossbow. The skinny sorcerer had been flung to the courtyard by _magic,_ and magic was out to get him. For all he knew, this "rescuer" had seen a man, assumed that it was Arthur, and flung him off of the balcony just on the off-chance that he was the man that they had all been sent to kill.

Arthur had been saved by one angry sorcerer; he was about to face another.

He took a deep breath, looking around him for anything more impressive than his small dagger that could be used as a weapon. Even a blunt object for the hurling would have been handy. He began to paw through the objects on the lower level of the cart, all of which had been upended and piled upon each other when Arthur had yanked the cart toward him. Most of it was rubbish, but he saw to his great relief that there was a table setting of dirty silver dishes and cutlery. While the spoon was unlikely to provide much help, the fork and knife at least increased his stabbing tools by two, and he could throw the cup. Plus, he thought with some excitement, wiping it clean with the sleeve that poked out from beneath his chainmail, he could use the plate as a shield or helmet or some sort of impressive attack discus that would behead this enemy sorcerer before he had the time to see spinning discus of death flying mercilessly at him…

Or, he thought, looking at it, he could use it as a mirror. That was perhaps more likely to be of some use than an impromptu attack discus. Especially when he had only named it an "attack discus" to make the throwing of a plate sound like a less pathetic method of self-defense.

Trying to make himself as small as possible, Arthur crouched at the edge of the cart and tilted the silver plate sideways, using the reflection to see who was in the corridor without risking leaning out from what little protection he had. As silver plates are not exactly designed for such a use, the image that Arthur got back was bent and distorted, but it was enough.

It was Merlin.

Of course it was.

Arthur only avoided beginning to laugh again by biting his lip so hard that he drew blood. This was so _stupid…_

Exasperation beginning to temper the high of the exhilaration that always accompanied the moments of looming death, Arthur took a deep breath and began to run through his options. The first that popped into his head—and by far the most appealing—was to just stand up and face Merlin. He could try to talk some sense into Merlin, try to remind him of all that they had been through together, try to bring him back to himself. At the very least, he had to imagine that there was some dignity in facing his death head on rather than hiding behind an entirely inadequate cart for the sorcerer to come and deal it standing over him.

Then again, there was far more dignity in not dying. As much as he would hate running away without even trying to stand up for himself, he had to imagine that living to deal with the shame was preferable to dying. As Merlin liked to say, "dignity" was often synonymous with "stupidity." Maybe Arthur should just shove the cart at Merlin and make a run for it.

Or, Arthur considered, he could just follow the example of the skinny sorcerer and jump over the railing himself down to the courtyard below. Granted, there was no way for him to land without breaking _something_ important, but if he could just inch or roll his way back into the shadows, he might stand a chance.

Then there was that final option, the choice that he so very much did not want to even consider. He could abandon the plans that were sentimental and unlikely, the plans that were undignified but _just_ possible, the plans that involved more grievous injuries than Gaius would be able to treat, the plans that meant that everyone would make it out alive—save perhaps the skinny sorcerer that Merlin had flung over the railing—and it would all be okay when it was all over and the sun rose…

Yes, there was another choice. It was probably even more suicidal than the option of taking a dive down into the courtyard, but it felt more…natural to him. He would die with weapons in his hands, even if they were only a dagger and goblet. He would die looking forward rather than running away. He would die, almost certainly, but he would make his final stand. It was what a _king_ should do.

Besides, it was so stupid a plan that it would probably have the element of surprise.

But could he do it? Could he leap at _Merlin _with a knife in hand, aiming to…aiming to do something terrible? Granted, Merlin had every intention of doing something terrible to Arthur, but it wasn't his choice. Arthur had a choice.

Arthur swallowed deeply, closing his eyes. Yes, Arthur had a choice, but he also had a wife. He had a kingdom. He had responsibilities. He had more to worry about than the life of a manservant who was, by all of the existing laws of Camelot, a traitor of the worst kind. He had a duty to attack Merlin, didn't he? He should _want_ to attack Merlin.

Of course he wanted to attack Merlin, Arthur told himself. He wasn't an _idiot,_ no matter how many times Merlin had conked him on the head. By all laws of logic and rationale, he wanted Merlin dead. Logically, attacking Merlin was the right and sensible thing to do. His subconscious clearly agreed; why else would he have drawn his dagger so instinctually? Attacking Merlin was the smart thing to do, and Arthur was a king. So the king grasped his dagger as tightly as he could, tucking the spoon and fork into his belt for good measure, taking a deep breath in preparation. He shifted into a crouching position, and the king prepared to jump out and do what he could to kill his manservant. The king was ready.

But Arthur wasn't.

So, cursing his own stupidity even as he did it, Arthur stood up from behind the cart and looked at his friend.

It didn't look like his friend. It was the same frame, yes, and he still wore the same combination of garments that he had worn every day since Arthur had met him. His hair was still mussed with the ease of a man who didn't have to look like a king and the comfort of a manservant who never bothered to dress for his highest of positions in the royal household. His boots were the same as ever, beaten and brown and possessing what Arthur was positive were far too many buckles than could possibly be necessary.

But it was all wrong. There were scratches on his forearms and face, giving the impression that Merlin had hastened back to the castle with such uncontrolled speed that he hadn't bothered trying to avoid any bushes or branches that happened to get in his way. Merlin wasn't fidgeting or squirming with energy contained as he usually did when instructed to stand still, such as when he stood—unnecessarily, as he claimed—in the back of the council chambers as Arthur presided over a meeting. Even his posture was wrong. He stood up straight without leaning so unsteadily on one leg in the way that Arthur claimed explained a great deal about his lack of general balance. His knees were locked and his frame stood at its full height. Arthur tended to prefer Merlin's slouch; it allowed him to maintain the illusion that he was, in fact, taller than his manservant. But this man wasn't standing like Merlin.

And the eyes…

Arthur didn't much like looking at the eyes. They looked…painful, as though little bits of what Merlin had been were burning up as they glowed. If he was honest with himself, Arthur knew, it wasn't the scratches or the stillness or the standing that was so unnerving. It was the eyes, completely overtaken by a color that was not their own, that made Merlin look like a completely different person. In a way, Arthur wished that it were just the pupils that were golden. Arthur had seen magic before, and he had only seen the pupils and irises—words that he had learned from Gaius and had not until this very moment realized that he'd been paying close enough attention to recall them—change color. But now, the entire eye socket was glowing to the extent that his brow and cheekbones were ever so slightly illuminated. It wasn't _right._ Merlin looked as though he was a corpse supported only by some terrible energy that shone through from his eyes. There was nothing of him in his body, and it occurred to Arthur that perhaps his plan to talk Merlin out of his homicidal mission was even more foolish than he'd already believed.

Still, it was too late for him to do anything else. Inhuman though he seemed, Arthur had the feeling that Merlin-even in his current state-would be bound to notice if he tried to sneak behind the cart again.

So Arthur decided that he would employ the most practical method to talk Merlin into becoming himself again.

"Hello, Merlin!" said Arthur as heartily as he could manage. "I see that you stole my horse!"

Arthur smiled as best he could and _waved, _feeling silly even as he made the motion. Was this _really_ the best that he could do? He'd never felt so pathetic.

Merlin apparently agreed, and Arthur didn't really blame him as Merlin gave a sort of disinterested swipe of the hand in Arthur's direction. Even as he skidded backward down the corridor, his armor drawing sparks from the stone floor, he found that the panic that had begun to pool in his chest upon seeing Merlin clearly and closely for the first time since he had broken the gate was beginning to recede. This magical blow _was_ certainly more powerful than the one dealt him by the skinny sorcerer, but Merlin hadn't slammed him into the wall or over the railing as he could have. Arthur was just skidding backward, and he was more than willing to disregard what pain there was from the attack if the comparative gentleness of it was not giving him so much relief. Perhaps he was just toying with Arthur...

On one level, Arthur knew that it was fairly ridiculous that being attacked by a sorcerer clearly far more powerful than the first should have _reassured _him. He knew that. Yet the fact remained that Merlin, with that half-hearted wave of a hand, had thrown him back with enough force to kill him, had he hit anything from the momentum. Merlin had thrown him down a corridor, and Arthur knew that he'd be sore in the morning from how he'd landed. But Merlin clearly hadn't meant for Arthur to die.

Merlin was _in_ there. He had to be. Glowing eyes aside, Merlin was in there.

Wasn't he?

Arthur stopped skidding and, as he heaved himself up, he realized that he had a stupid smile on his face. He was glad that there was no one else there to see it. Except Merlin, but Merlin wouldn't tell anyone. He'd tease Arthur, of course, but Arthur tended to let that go whenever they were alone.

Arthur stood up and looked around for Merlin, certain that he would have followed Arthur as he slid down the hallway. He was even half-surprised that Merlin had not offered him a hand to pull him to his feet. But Merlin was still where he had been when he'd made his attack, alone in the middle of the corridor. It was only by squinting in the gloom and the brightness in Merlin's eyes that Arthur could begin to discern Merlin's expression.

There wasn't one, and Arthur was just beginning to grow concerned about the implications of blankness when Merlin extended an arm toward Arthur. He saw the fingers clench into a fist, but it was not until he felt a sudden pressure on his abdomen that he realized what was about to happen to him.

"Oh, hell," Arthur whispered. Then Merlin yanked his arm backward toward his side, and Arthur was be pulled along the floor right back in the direction from which he had come. There was no time for him to do any smiling or hoping this time; he had to muster all of his strength to flip himself off of his belly and onto his back, sparing his face the injuries that would come from being dragged at such great force down the corridor. The speed was so significant and the pressure on his abdomen so distracting that he almost didn't even notice as a great scrape was drawn up on the right side of his face, from chin to temple, covering his entire cheek and only just sparing him a break to the nose that would have been utterly irreparable.

After a few seconds, the pressure was released from his abdomen, and he was no longer being pulled. His momentum, however, carried him forward until he was stopped only by a collision with Merlin's legs, which bent slightly at the impact before one leg kicked gently forward to roll Arthur away.

Too unnerved now to be properly angry, Arthur sat back and pulled one of his gloves off with his teeth. Refusing to look up at Merlin, he raised the back of his naked hand and brushed it over the right side of his face. Wincing at the contact, he felt wetness that meant that he was bleeding. Pulling his hand away and looking down to see just how much blood he was losing, he saw a small clump of blond hairs that had been loosened from his scalp by the terrible skid.

_Now_ he was angry.

He forgot his pain and shoved himself into a standing position, so irritated that for a moment, he was able to overlook the golden eyes. He wiped the black glove along the side of his face to soak up a bit of blood before hurling it at Merlin in what he was certain was one of the most unwisely petulant moments in his entire life.

Plus, it didn't even hit Merlin. The glove landed at his feet. Annoyed by his own foolishness, Arthur opened his mouth to shout. He was just drawing in a breath that would permit him a lengthy rant when he saw Merlin bend down at the knees and pick up the glove in an action that was so automatically familiar that Arthur's anger drained away as quickly as it had flared. Merlin was so wrong and so alien and so unnatural and so _off_ that it hadn't been difficult for Arthur to dismiss his sympathies in the face of a facial injury that would almost certainly leave one hell of a scar. But as he bent down to pick up something that Arthur had thoughtlessly tossed aside, Arthur's heart ached. He was wrong and alien and unnatural…but that was still Merlin, and Merlin was in trouble. How could Arthur turn on him when he needed help?

Well, if he listened to the little voice in the back of his mind that sounded suspiciously like that of his wife, he could _easily_ turn on Merlin when he needed help. But Guinevere wasn't there, and Merlin was, and…

"Just so you know," Arthur coughed, rubbing at his abdomen with one hand and gesturing at the thrown glove with the other. "That wasn't a challenge to a duel or anything. That was just retaliation for you throwing me up and down the corridor. Granted, it wasn't the most impressive of retaliations, but I seem to have lost my sword and I don't have a crossbow and you happen to have magic handy for this situation, but it was the best that I could do with what I—"

Arthur was cut off when he saw Merlin look up at the ceiling above them and blink. Swearing at the fact that he seemed to be spending most of his time on the floor of this damn hallway, Arthur flung himself backward, landing hard and protecting the side of his face that would probably show cheekbone if it went through another skid.

His jump had only just been in time; a large chunk of ceiling fell right where Arthur had been standing only a moment before. Extremely shaken by the fact that he couldn't explain away as halfhearted the attack via falling rock the same way that he could being thrown about the hallway, Arthur completely missed his opportunity to try to run as Merlin was momentarily blocked by his own destruction. With steady legs and without wobbling in the slightest, Merlin climbed over the fallen rock and jumped down.

Once again, Arthur inhaled deeply and tried to pretend that the voice telling him to try to run was the one that was irrational. He wasn't going to run or attack. He was going to do the only right thing. He was going to make Merlin remember, or he was going to die trying. And he was going to ignore that the odds were very heavily in the "die trying" category.

"When this is all over, you're going to have to fix that," Arthur said breathlessly, steeling his courage as he gestured up at the sky that had been previously concealed by stone. "Don't think that just because you're my manservant that I'm going to let you get away with tearing apart my architecture."

Arthur suppose that, with _that_ particular admonishment, he shouldn't have really been surprised that Merlin chose the tearing apart of architecture as the basis for his next attack. Granted, Arthur would have only been able to pick up a piece of the debris and hurl it in Merlin's general direction, but the idea would have been the same. Fundamentally, Arthur supposed that he could understand.

Realistically, however, Arthur was too busy shouting out in displeasure at the length of railing that Merlin—with another bat of his eyes—tore off in a 10 foot long strip that spanned the width of the corridor. As it began hurtling in Arthur's direction, he became grimly aware that the only practical reaction would have been to climb atop the railing and wait for free space. As it was, leaping down onto the courtyard was beginning to seem like the best plan for survival.

Unfortunately, the best plan for survival wasn't exactly what Arthur was going for. Not that way. So, as the waist-high strip of railing flew toward him, knocking aside the debris that had fallen from the collapsing rock, Arthur saw the overturned cart a few feet in front of him, on its side at about the height of Arthur's knees. Ignoring every instinct that reminded him that he heading in the opposite direction for this scenario, Arthur jumped atop the cart and, just as the strip of corridor was about to make the collision that would at the very least injure him with such severity that he wouldn't have the chance to do anything except wait.

The good news was that Arthur _did_ in fact manage to avoid being crushed beneath the sliding stone. The bad news was that he timed his jump _just_ too early, and when he came down, his left foot caught on the length of railing. It was only by covering his face with his forearm that he avoided smashing his face bloody. The bumps and scrapes and bruises elsewhere could be dealt with; a reassembled face could not.

Distantly, he knew that he ought to be pleased that he had avoided the facial destruction. Presently, however, he was much too distracted by his attempts to not cry out in pain from what he was almost certain was a broken forearm.

But he did manage it, because deep down inside him, way down past the pain from his forearm and the throbbing of the scraped side of his cheek and the exhaustion of trying to do and feel too many things at once, Arthur remembered why he'd done the stupid thing and remained in this corridor long enough to break his arm and scrape his face and wear himself out. He remembered why he was being so terribly foolish, and he knew that shouting at his attacker wouldn't do either of them any good.

So, cradling his broken arm—unfortunately, his broken _right _arm—Arthur continued in his strategy to recover his manservant.

"I'll have you in the stocks for this, Merlin," said Arthur brightly, trying so desperately hard to sound normal, because maybe if _he_ sounded normal then _Merlin_ would be normal again. He was the king, damn it, and if Merlin didn't want to stop this on his own, Arthur would _will_ him out of this enchantment. He was the _king,_ Arthur thought again, and it was only very distantly that he realized that he was beginning to cry. "And I'll do it when there's lots of rotten food for the villagers to throw at you, even potatoes, which I understand are still very hard even after they've gone bad. You just wait. I'll have you in the stocks…"

Merlin crossed his arms over his chest, looking irritatingly put-together. Arthur wished that he could at least have the decency to be out of breath. The skinny peasant sorcerer probably would have keeled over and died from the exertion before the rock tossing had even begun. Merlin wasn't even _swaying_, for heaven's sake. He looked more steady and in control of his movements than he did when _not_ under an enemy enchantment.

Stupid powerful Merlin.

But Arthur didn't have the time to think about all of the reasons that the whole situation was unfair. He had to believe that Merlin's arm-crossing only meant that Arthur was in for a whole new attack, and Arthur tensed, holding injured his arm tightly against his abdomen, stabilizing it while he had to chance. Oh, he just _knew_ that there was going to be _jumping_ again…

Yet when Merlin blinked again, nothing was hurled at Arthur. Arthur wasn't hurled anywhere. Merlin didn't collapse the floor below him to send him down into the rooms below. Merlin didn't do anything at all to Arthur, and it wasn't until Arthur registered a bang in the distance that he understood that Merlin's magic had been directed at something else.

Distracted despite himself, Arthur looked out over where the railing ought to have been. It was _just_ beginning to grow a tiny bit lighter outside, and he saw a puff of dust shoot up from somewhere beyond the castle walls in the lower town. It took a few moments but when Arthur realized what it was, he laughed aloud, as much in relief as incredulous hysteria.

Merlin had blown up the stocks.

Of course, it shouldn't have been the most reassuring thought that Merlin could explode a structure that was hundreds of feet away with alarming specificity and without so much as turning his head in that general direction, but still. There had to be some vestige of Merlin in there. There _had_ to be. Why else would he blow up the stocks? Surely someone entirely devoted to the enforced mission at hand would be far more intent on destroying _Arthur_ than destroying the occasional punitive structure. Merlin's sense of humor was in there, he thought desperately. It was still there, just…amplified. And aggressive. And angry.

Still, Arthur had the sense to think that perhaps he ought to start to inch his way backward. He was still intent on not fleeing, but there was always the possibility of more jumping. The more distance between the two of them, the better.

"I'd throw you in the dungeons," Arthur babbled, still backing away and looking at Merlin as directly as he could without staring him in the eyes. "I'd say that I'd throw you in the dungeons, Merlin, but I don't want you to blow those up. I think that we're standing on top of them, and I'd rather not collapse through the floor because you've decided that the dungeons should be the next thing to go. And even if we're not on top of the dungeons, I still don't want them destroyed. Where would we house all the prisoners in the meantime? Of course, we could just hang them faster, but we still ought to have dungeons. And honestly, it's bad enough that we're going to have to repair this corridor, but it would be a _nightmare_ to have to rebuild those…right? Not that _I _would do the actual rebuilding, of course, but I would have to go to trouble of making other people do it for me. That's a job too, you know. Bossing people around is exhausting business."

_Laugh,_ Arthur thought desperately, trying to move past the gap in the railing. If he was going to be thrown sideways, a collision with intact railing would mean more pain. A fall to the courtyard would almost certainly result in a bit more than that. _Oh, please just_ laugh, he thought again. He didn't care if it would be a laugh with him or a laugh at him or a laugh just at the idea that it would only occur to Arthur _now_ that the dungeons could probably use a bit of updating. It did seem like an awful lot of people escaped from those dungeons…and that could be funny, couldn't it?

But Merlin didn't laugh.

"You've been in those dungeons, haven't you?" asked Arthur, speaking so rapidly that he wasn't entirely sure that Merlin could have heard him even if he'd been properly in his own mind. "Plenty of times. I've thrown you in, my father's thrown you in…I've been in the dungeons too, remember? When you drank the poison for me and I went for the flower and my father was so angry that he threw me in the dungeons? That was ages ago, wasn't it? What a laugh that was. Well, in hindsight. It wasn't so funny at the time, was it? It shouldn't be funny _now,_ really. You know, I'd lasted two decades as a prince without requiring much discipline from my father. You're not even half a year in my service, and I'm being thrown in the dungeons. I should've known then that you were going to be trouble."

Merlin uncrossed his arms, and Arthur took a deep breath, preparing. But Merlin didn't do anything. He just stood there, motionless and with his arms at his sides, standing like a poorly dressed and not particularly interesting statue. His eyes remained open.

Arthur decided to take this as a good sign.

"It was odd that I would go to the trouble of imprisoning you, now that I think about it," said Arthur, his voice shaking as he tried to keep it conversational and pretend that he wasn't particularly bothered by the repeated attempts on his life. He forced himself to stop backing away. He didn't walk any closer either, but he thought that stopping the backward movement was _something_, at least.

"I should have just sacked you. That would've have made much more sense, wouldn't it? Of course, I did sack you once. Remember? It was just after you came to work for me, and you did something that wasn't fitting to your station—it was early on, so I didn't know just yet that you would never really behave as befit your station—so I just went ahead and sacked you. Remember? Oh, please," said Arthur, his voice suddenly growing very quiet. "Please remember that. I took you back, remember? The one time that I behave like a proper prince and sack you, it lasts for about a day. And we didn't even _like_ each other then, remember?"

Merlin still didn't move and he remained as expressionless as he had during this whole encounter. But Arthur thought that he saw something that was either very promising or very foreboding for what would happen next. He saw Merlin sway.

Slightly encouraged, Arthur inhaled deeply, preparing for another incoherent speech. His voice was hoarse and his pain beginning to grow more distracting, but that didn't matter, really. Whether his admittedly poorly thought-out plan was beginning to work or if he was just hastening his own demise by annoying the sorcerer who wasn't really Merlin, this was at least progress, wasn't it?

So Arthur chose another memory and started up again, forcing himself to hold his ground.

"And remember when I had to go on that quest to the Perilous Lands, all on my own? And you nagged at me and complained that since _I_ got to pick the quest that I should have picked something somewhat less perilous? But I went anyway and I was doing just fine until I passed out—and you weren't even there to conk me in the head with anything! But I passed out for whatever reason and I woke up and you were there and so was Gwaine and I'm still not entirely sure how that worked out, but—"

And Arthur choked, his throat going utterly dry so quickly that it hurt, and he tried to raise his right hand to clutch at it before he remembered that trying to use that arm for anything nonessential that did not involve flopping it around uselessly was a slightly bad idea. He would have cried out in pain, but he didn't seem to be able to make a sound. Even his breathing felt strained.

His voice was gone.

Well, that resolved the mystery of whether he had been getting through to Merlin or just annoying him with the speeches.

It was not a promising resolution.

Arthur's voice was gone and, for the first time, Arthur raised his head parallel with Merlin's so that, if Merlin's eyes has been in their normal state, he'd've been holding Arthur's gaze. Why the hell not? If he couldn't speak to try to make it all better, he could at least look his killer in the eye before the final spell was chosen. He could do that now. After all, this was no different than an execution, really, was it?

The thought gave him shivers.

And it hurt. This was it. He had failed, and this was the end. And it was _Merlin._

Holding his head as high as he could, he waited for Merlin to say something. Even if Merlin couldn't be _Merlin_, even if he hadn't so much as opened his mouth to utter a single word thus far, surely the sorcerer who had cast this spell would have arranged for whoever was to strike the killing blow to have some sort of last words to deliver, a final condemnation, a declaration, a rationalization, a boast, _something_.

But Merlin didn't say a word.

It was dreadfully quiet.

The sky was black as ink.

Merlin was standing very still and Arthur was giving one final desperate consideration to the plan of leaping over the railing onto the courtyard when he saw something that caught his strained breath in his chest. Merlin's eyes…flickered.

At first, Arthur was sure that he'd imagined it. After all, hadn't he spent the last ten minutes hoping and praying that Merlin's eyes would turn blue again, that he would be regular old annoying Merlin again? Surely, his mind had just conjured up the image in a subconscious effort to keep him from diving down onto the very solid stone of the courtyard. But, before he could help it, he looked at Merlin's face with more intensity than he'd dared since he'd discovered that Merlin had become—for that terrible night—an enemy.

And Merlin's eyes flickered again.

It was only for an instant, and Arthur became aware that Merlin's body seemed to be indicating for the first time the same sort of genuine stress that was affecting the other sorcerers. He was breathing very hard and, although he didn't sway or stagger like all the others had, his joints all seemed to be shivering, as though his body was either trying very hard to move or very hard to stand still.

His eyes flickered.

Gold.

Blue.

The pressure on Arthur's throat released, and he gasped.

Gold.

The moon illuminated the corridor.

Blue.

Everything was still.

Blue.

Blue…

Arthur exhaled a laugh, not even knowing why. It was as though all of the tension that had built in his chest and all of the frightened tightness in his lungs was released all at once, and the only way that his body could possibly deal with it was to laugh. All at once, he shuddered, and realized that he'd been sweating profusely. His shirt was all but soaked through beneath his mail, and a breeze was beginning to blow over them. Probably from the brand new hole in the roof, Arthur thought distantly.

Blue.

Merlin shook his head back and forth. He blinked.

And his eyes remained blue.

Arthur realized that his eyes were wet again. It didn't seem to matter.

To Merlin's credit, it only took him a few seconds to seem to register what was happening. Of course, he'd known about the enchantment, Arthur recalled. He'd fled with so much haste that he surely must have seen the possibility of this happening. Merlin glanced around him, looking exhausted and not even appearing to notice Arthur, and he seemed to realize where he was. For a moment, Merlin hung his head in what Arthur recognized as shame, and the he looked as though he was going to collapse to the ground and weep.

Then, Merlin saw Arthur. The devastation that had crept into his eyes upon the realization of where he was and what he must have been doing there vanished in an instant, and heartbreaking relief flashed across his face before being replaced by fear and terrible uncertainty. His body swayed and his eyes flickered again, and Arthur understood. Merlin needed to focus. Although distantly offended that this seemed to mean that his attempts to bring Merlin back to himself had been entirely eclipsed by Merlin's internal struggles with for control, Arthur hoped would have the chance think about that later. Right now, he could shut up and let Merlin focus.

Arthur stood very still and watched as silently as he could manage without stopping breathing altogether.

Merlin's whole body shivered, and he closed his eyes. His fists were very tightly clenched, and his nose began to bleed. Then he looked up again.

Gold.

Blue.

Blue.

Merlin shook his head again, looking dreadfully pale, the red of the blood on his face giving him a ghastly complexion more grim than Arthur had seen on many a corpse. His expression as he once again came back to himself quickly grew frightened and confused and so very sad. He didn't seem to want to look at the king. There was something strangely determined in him that Arthur couldn't understand.

"Merlin..?" Arthur said, very quietly.

Merlin's eyes flickered.

His nose bled.

Finally looking at Arthur with the blue eyes that Arthur liked to see, Merlin gave a tired half-smile that lasted just long enough for Arthur's heart to leap and begin to hope that maybe it was all going to be okay now.

Then, Merlin raised a palm to the side of his own head. Shrugging apologetically with such controlled deliberation that Arthur was suddenly frightened, Merlin's eyes flashed gold. Immediately, Merlin crumpled to the floor. His body twitched once, twice…and then was still.

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**Well, this was just obscenely long. I considered breaking it into two chapters just to save myself the embarrassment, but here it is. Hopefully some of you actually made it through the whole thing! **

**Thank you for reading, and please review! **


	4. And Outside In

**Disclaimer: **_**Merlin**_** is not mine. **

What on earth was he going to tell Merlin's mother?

Odd that he should think about that just then. Surely there were more pressing issues deserving consideration at that moment. The world _was_ just about upside down in every way imaginable. But for the life of him, Arthur could think of a single one. Merlin was lying on the stone of the corridor, motionless and magical, beaten and broken, struck down by his own hand. It seemed like only a few seconds ago that Merlin had been relentlessly working to _murder_ Arthur, and now he was on the ground and looked so still and it had all happened so suddenly that Arthur found that he could not catch his breath. Merlin had been alive and upright with eyes burning with magical malevolence only moments ago, and now he might not be and there was none of it and Arthur couldn't breathe properly and what on earth was he going to tell Merlin's mother?

Arthur closed his eyes for a few moments, inhaling deeply as he tried to slow his heartbeat. This wasn't the time to think about Merlin's mother. This wasn't the time to think about what Merlin had done or why he had done it. This wasn't the time to think about anything that wasn't of immediate concern. Arthur just had to slow down and look around him and evaluate the situation before he could take any action. One thing at a time. The fact that the person who had been actively attacking him was now…incapacitated...did not mean that Arthur was at all safe. While almost certainly less powerful than Merlin had been, surely the remaining sorcerers who had not been flung over railings or melted their brains into tiny bits within their skulls were still more than capable of killing the king. Arthur just had to keep his head and, as his breath began to return to an even pace, he opened his eyes. One thing at a time…

There was Merlin, just as still and sunken on his back, head lolled to the side, as he had been when he had first fallen. Biting his lip, Arthur began to weave his way toward the fallen sorcerer. Merlin was less than twenty feet away, but it took Arthur more than a minute to reach him; between the scattered debris, Arthur's exhaustion, and an uncertainty in his equilibrium that made him suspect that perhaps his broken arm was not the most significant of his many injuries, he had to choose his footfalls carefully. Falling down wouldn't do anyone any favors. Besides, Merlin didn't exactly look to be going anywhere.

Still, sooner than he would have liked, he reached Merlin. Arthur ran a quick evaluation of his own body, not entirely certain that he'd be able to get back up if he sank into a crouch. There was a strange sort of disconnect between Arthur's body and his mind, and it wasn't until he moved his right arm a little bit more than he should have and the pain jolted up his shoulder that he came back to what senses remained of him. He was sore and scraped and bloody, but he could remain upright. Even his arm wasn't so bad, so long as he didn't make any foolishly dramatic gestures with it. Thus reassured that he was physically capable of it, Arthur took a very deep breath and bent stiffly to crouch over Merlin.

It was strange. Merlin looked _different,_ and Arthur couldn't place why. It wasn't the dirt or the scratches or even the pallor that made him look suspiciously lacking in life. Arthur had seen him bloody and ill on plenty of occasions in the past. Hell, Arthur had made Merlin _work_ bloody and ill on plenty of occasions in the past. Normally, Merlin bloody and ill wouldn't even have been too particularly alarming. His eyes were shut, but they'd shared enough campsites and Arthur had caught him napping enough times that Merlin with closed eyes was hardly an unfamiliar sight. His mouth was closed; _that_ was something of a rarity, but even Merlin had been known to lapse into the occasional tactful or—more often—spiteful silence. Everything was more or less _normal…_why should he look so different now?

Then Arthur realized. He'd seen Merlin more or less in this position plenty of times before, but never had the young man been so still or so…close. Whenever Merlin had been out like this, there were more important things to do than just _look_ at him. There was fighting to do and people to kill and backing up to allow Gaius to do some curing or finding something heavy to throw at Merlin to wake him from an unsanctioned nap. Now, there was nothing to do, nothing to fight or fix or fling. So Arthur just watched.

Merlin looked terribly young. Arthur supposed that it might have been because he didn't have one of his expressions of weariness or worry or frustration or exasperation, the looks that were so often on his face that the absence made him look almost like he had when Arthur had first met him, the foolish young man who'd only known life in a village boasting of a smaller population than the number of servants who'd waited upon Arthur. Merlin had been so _stupid,_ Arthur thought. He just showed up and mouthed off to the prince and gotten himself into trouble. Why would he come to Camelot anyway? Magic was illegal. Had Merlin had such a death wish? If Arthur and Uther were not going to execute him for the sheer impudence that he insisted on displaying daily, he had to know the risks of practicing sorcery, no matter what lengths he might go to in order to do so in secret. Merlin had been so stupid…

Arthur sighed and tilted Merlin's chin toward the sky, carefully avoiding checking for signs of life. As reassuring as it would have been to find a pulse, an absence of one would have been more than Arthur could bear just then. He just hadn't liked the way in which Merlin's head was bent off to the side; it made him look as though his neck was broken, and Arthur didn't like seeing him that way.

Now able to glimpse more than just a profile of Merlin's left side, Arthur found himself wishing that he'd just left Merlin alone and kept him in the previous position. Merlin looking young and innocent and stupid and broken-necked wasn't so bad, really. Looking at Merlin's _whole_ face…there was no naivete there. The Merlin who had come from Ealdor was gone. This was the face of the man that Camelot had turned him into.

Blood trickled from the corner of his mouth. At first, Arthur didn't even notice; what blood was on Merlin's face had all seemed to have come from his nose and, even when Arthur gently wiped Merlin's face as clean as was possible with a sleeve already stained with his _own_ blood, Arthur didn't realize. It was only when Arthur noticed that a patch of skin around Merlin's mouth was surprisingly swollen that it occurred to him. Merlin had bitten his cheek and probably tongue when he had hit the rock. Arthur let go of Merlin's head at the unpleasant realization and, freed of the stabilization, Merlin's face lolled toward Arthur, displaying clearly in the pale moonlight that provided their only illumination the _right_ side of Merlin's face.

Arthur sat down very hard on the stone.

There was a hand-shaped welt slowly rising on the right side of Merlin's face, the spot where he had placed his palm to strike himself down burnt red by whatever he had done. Merlin hadn't exactly had much in the way of facial hair, but whatever fuzz he'd had on his face—he'd apparently not taken any breaks in his frantic flight from the citadel to do any basic grooming—showed clearly enough the severity of the burn. All of the hairs that had been on his cheek when he'd placed his hand on his skin were burnt clear off, and a series of white blisters were already rising from his earlobe. As Arthur forced himself to look more closely, he saw that there were two distinct finger-shaped lengths, extending past his hairline above his ear, on which the hair was shorn, pink scalp showing through the balded lines. It was as though someone had branded the side of his face with a hand-shaped iron.

The first thing that Arthur thought was that it was only fair for Merlin to have a bit of mauling to his face; he'd already scraped away half of the skin on Arthur's.

The second thing that Arthur thought was that he was glad that he'd suffered no similar attack; even if Merlin's hair _would_ ever grow back into those balded streaks, Arthur wouldn't have wanted to have to live with how silly it would have certainly looked with his crown.

The third thing that Arthur thought was that it was good that Merlin hadn't had a finger on an eye when he'd done what he'd done. Flesh might blister and hair might smoke; burnt eyes were hardly so recoverable.

And the fourth thing that Arthur thought was that Merlin was probably dead.

Arthur leant to his other side and was sick.

After a moment, he pushed himself back up, wiping his mouth with a sleeve that was—between the vomit and the blood of two utterly battered men—now thoroughly covered in filth. He also found himself wishing that he hadn't pushed himself up so…abruptly. His vision swam in front of him and he had to cover his mouth to keep from vomiting again.

"Why does Merlin always have to go for the head?" Arthur muttered, trying not to heave. Very slowly, he rose to his feet. Sitting was by far the more comfortable alternative, but he had the feeling that comfort would be a very bad idea just then. He was already exhausted, and if he was too comfortable, he might fall asleep, and if he felt asleep with his head feeling the way it was…well, he just might not wake back up. And if he was going to die this night, it was not going to be because he nodded off after a concussion, even a concussion so...concussing as this.

Besides, he realized with a jolt, he had to move, didn't he? He couldn't very well just _stay_ there. The battle between Arthur and Merlin had made plenty of noise, and surely some of the other enchanted enemy sorcerers would think to chase down the source. Not that it had really been much of a "battle." He'd been too busy getting himself magically beaten half to death to do much battling. But it _had_ been noisy. He and Merlin wouldn't be safe here. They needed to—

"Oh," Arthur said aloud, grimacing. He _and_ Merlin needed to go somewhere safe. Both of them, and Merlin wasn't exactly at his most spry. Even if he was still alive, Merlin didn't look as though he was going to be up and running any time soon. Still, there had to be _something_ that Arthur could do.

Maybe he should throw some water on Merlin's face…Arthur reached for his waterskin at his belt before he remembered that he didn't have a waterskin. He never carried a waterskin at his belt.

Maybe he should shout in Merlin's face until Merlin woke up. That was one of the ways that Arthur would wake Merlin up from a nap. But maybe that was a bad idea. He remembered that the whole reason why he wanted to leave because they'd made so much noise, Merlin with his blasting and Arthur being blasted…maybe the shouting would be as bad as the blasting. Alright, Arthur decided woozily. No shouting.

Maybe he should kick Merlin, just kick him in the ribs until he woke up. Maybe not kick. Nudge, more like. Yes, nudging would be better. Maybe he should just nudge Merlin until Merlin woke up. But something about that felt like a bad plan. He didn't see what was wrong, not exactly, but something felt terribly off…maybe the nudging Merlin awake wasn't the best plan.

But honestly, what _could_ he do? He couldn't very well _carry_ Merlin, not with the shape that his arm was in. Even dragging him was out of the question; the debris from the various ways in which Arthur was getting himself beaten half to death littered the corridor. They were practically walled in by the remnants of Merlin's destruction. Besides, Arthur had the growing suspicion that if _he_ didn't make his escape quickly, he wouldn't be able to manage it at all. Everything felt so _heavy…_ and now his _legs_ were wobbling. Why would his legs be wobbling? He didn't remember hurting his legs. Well, not comparatively. Still, he wasn't very stable, and that wouldn't do at all. Wanting very much not to do something stupid like fall over, Arthur clenched his fingers around the hilt of his sword—feeling clumsy and strange in his left hand—and bent to lean on the blade for support.

Arthur fell to his knees, empty stomach heaving again. He didn't have a sword, he remembered. He hadn't had a sword for ages. He'd lost it when he'd faced the skinny sorcerer, before Merlin had even shown up. He didn't have a sword…

For the first time since Merlin had collapsed, Arthur began to feel genuine fear for himself. He'd forgotten that he didn't have a sword…how could he have forgotten that he didn't have a sword? This wasn't right. _He_ wasn't right. This wasn't right...

It didn't matter, Arthur thought suddenly. What mattered was that he and Merlin escape before more attackers showed up. That was the only way. He and Merlin needed to get away, find somewhere safe to hide out, so that Arthur could go ahead and collapse in peace and Merlin could go ahead and wake up and fix Arthur before he died. It would all be okay, if only Arthur could figure out how to do it.

He wanted to weep and he didn't know why. His eyelids were awfully heavy. But that wouldn't do at all. He couldn't have heavy eyelids because he couldn't close his eyes because if he closed his eyes he would fall asleep and he didn't remember why but he knew that that would be bad.

He discovered that he was standing up again. When had that happened? He'd been on his knees because he didn't have a sword and then…

He shook his head, ignoring the queasiness from the movement as he tried to perk himself up. He almost wished that an attacker _would_ show up. He could use the spike in his heart rate.

Blinking rapidly, he stopped shaking his head and stared straight before him, and he looked at the person standing in front of him.

He saw Guinevere, but not as she was then. She was not garbed in silks and satins and velvets, tripping over the hems that were too long but required for a queen and hoping that no one noticed as she stumbled. There was no crown on her head, no jeweled garlands woven into her hair, no necklaces at her throat. There was no expression on her face that was so dignified and so regal that it was almost impossible to detect the discomfort that she had not yet managed to wholly banish. She was as she was before she had loved him, before he had loved her. She was innocent and endearing and free of the worries that came from years of hopelessly loving a man that she should not have even addressed without a preceding curtsy. She was why he had fallen in love with her and why he loved her still. And he knew what she wanted of him.

_I'm sorry,_ Arthur said to his wife, with all of the love in his heart. _But I can't just leave him here._

Then Guinevere melted away and turned into his father, a transition that Arthur would have normally found very disturbing had he not been otherwise preoccupied with trying to remain conscious. His father wasn't standing, but that wasn't unusual. He was the king; who was he supposed to stand for? Arthur was more powerful than almost anyone else in the whole kingdom, but he was always still second. So Uther remained sitting, because he was first. When had his throne appeared? It hadn't been there when Guinevere had stood before him. Yet Uther sat in his throne, slumped back, legs spread wide, arms comfortable, with such presence that even such relative casualness commanded a respect that Arthur had yet to fully achieve. Uther's crown was straight on his head, and he didn't blink at all. He didn't even have an expression, just a frown that was not so much of displeasure as of disappointment. Arthur shifted uncomfortably, and Uther's unblinking gaze followed him in silence. Uther sat there motionlessly, and Arthur was afraid.

_I know,_ Arthur said to his father, with all of the respect that he possessed. _But I can't just leave him here alone. _

Then Arthur's father was gone and his throne along with him, replaced by Arthur's mother, beautiful and blonde and younger in death than Arthur was in life. What a strange thought; he was older now than his mother ever would be. That wasn't how it was supposed to work, was it? Mothers and fathers are meant to be older than their children, always. There wasn't supposed to be any other way. But she should have lived long enough to see her son walk, to hear him speak, to see him swing a sword, to don his crown and take his wife and father sons of his own…yet she was dead and he was alive and...and it was all because of magic that Arthur had never known a mother. Wasn't it?

_I'm sorry,_ Arthur said to his mother, with all of the sadness that he'd ever felt. _But I can't just leave him here alone to die._

Then his mother was gone and Arthur saw himself. He saw himself as he had been a decade before, lacking the cares that he held now, before he'd seen more in Guinevere than a serving girl, before Morgana had been anything other than his sister in all but blood, before he'd bothered to learn any of his menservants' names because of how swiftly he tired of and dismissed them…when he'd kept tallies of those he'd killed, remembering their numbers rather than their faces, when battle was little more than a tourney with real blades, when the final decisions never had to be his because he was only the prince…he saw himself standing tall, arm unbroken, skin unbloodied, face without any lines or crinkles, hair golden without one of the occasional greys and whites that Merlin claimed were there but that Arthur would deny until his dying breath because his hair was light already and no one would be able to tell and Merlin was probably lying anyway because he was annoyed at Arthur for managing to spill wine on his sheets. Arthur saw himself when he didn't bother wearing a dagger in his boot because it didn't occur to him that he'd ever lose his primary weapon, his armor was barely scratched, his mail not even needing mending yet, a shield at his feet because he never used it outside of tourneys, a sword in his hand that wasn't Excalibur…

_I remember,_ he said to himself, with all of the bitterness that he hadn't known that he felt. _But I can't just leave him here alone to die, to be dead. He wouldn't leave me. _

Then he saw himself turn into Merlin and, if he hadn't been distantly aware that none of this was actually real and that his brain was probably dripping out of his ears, Arthur would have tried to look away. Guinevere, Uther, his mother…they'd all appeared at different stages in their lives, but they'd been as Arthur might have seen them. They had appeared as he would have wished them. But this false Merlin was just as the real one was, broken and bloody and pale, the only differences being that _this_ Merlin was standing upright and his eyes were open. Somehow, the recognizable signs of life made the rest of his image all the more terrible. But the eyes were all Merlin, and Arthur focused on those and he saw in them what the others had been too busy loving him in their own ways to come out and say. Merlin was telling him to flee, telling him to hide, telling him that he was being stupid, calling him some name that Arthur didn't think was actually an existing word but recognized the tone well enough to understand that it was an insult. Merlin was telling Arthur to leave him behind and go away and be safe.

"Shut up, Merlin," Arthur told him.

Then Merlin's shade disappeared. He did not turn into anyone else, and Arthur wondered if the cessation was because his head injury was affecting him so much now that it would not even allow him the comfort of his hallucinations or if it was because he had run out of the most important people in his life with which he could have had imaginary conversations. Guinevere's image, Uther's memory, Ygraine's ghost…they were all gone.

But Merlin-the _real_ Merlin-was still there.

Arthur suddenly found himself falling _again_ and sitting down very hard on the cracked stone of the corridor, his knees buckling in on themselves. His head hurt dreadfully, and he thought that maybe his scraped face was bleeding again. It was odd, though. When had he decided to sit?

It didn't matter, really. Sitting was feeling pretty good. He had a distant inkling that sitting was supposed to be bad, but he didn't care. It was much better than standing. Comfortable for the first time in what felt like ages, Arthur leaned back against the wall and closed his eyes.

After what may have been a few seconds or a few minutes or a few hours, Arthur heard a scratching sound. It was muffled at first, as though Arthur was trying to listen to something with pillows pressed over his ears. As he began to rouse himself a bit, the sound became clearer. The scratching was strangely soft, like boot leather scraping along stone as someone tried to walk in a straight line. He smiled a very little bit as he realized what a specific assignation of the sound that he'd given. It was a sound that he associated with wanderings back to his chamber when particularly...inebriated...and trying not to seem it, but he doubted that _these_ steps were those of a drunken king being herded along by a tutting and slightly amused manservant. Yet steps they were. Someone was moving. Someone _else._

Still, when Arthur finally opened his eyes, the first thing that he looked at was Merlin. Deep down and even despite the fact that he'd never even properly looked Merlin over after seeing the mess that was the burned half of his face, Arthur knew that Merlin wasn't moving, and he certainly wouldn't be walking down the corridor _toward_ Arthur. Arthur's brain may have felt like mush, but he had to believe that he wasn't so far gone that he couldn't tell near from far. Yet he looked at Merlin and hoped. Just in case.

It wasn't Merlin.

Too tired to do much caring anymore, Arthur was just about to shut his eyes again when it occurred to him that he probably ought to figure out just _what_ that scraping sound had been. Just because it hadn't been a spontaneously reanimated Merlin didn't mean that it wasn't important. Shaking his head again and scowling at himself, Arthur looked around.

And Arthur saw.

He didn't like what he saw, though, so he shut his eyes, counted to five, then opened them to look again.

He saw.

So he shut his eyes, counted to ten, then opened them to look again.

"Ah," said Arthur, breathing heavily. He wondered how _he_ was making the most noise; there were so many more of them, and he hadn't heard them, not really. He'd only heard the one, and that was only because that one was injured enough to drag a foot. How had they even all gotten there? He was _surrounded,_ and they were just staring at him. How had he let this happen? And why hadn't they just gone ahead and killed him?

There were a dozen of them, at least. Maybe more. The sorcerers had made a sort of half circle around him and Merlin, trapping the pair between them and the wall. Arthur's only escape route was now blocked by a wall of enemies, none of whom seemed to be quite as beaten up as Arthur was. Their eyes all still glowed golden, none of them flickering like Merlin's had before he'd taken himself out of the fight. Their faces were blank and, although they all seemed to be constantly swaying and shifting their weight for some reason that was beyond Arthur, they remained shoulder to shoulder. There would be no breaking through the ranks. It was terribly eerie, and that the silence was broken only by Arthur's breathing and the scraping footfalls of the arriving sorcerer just made everything worse.

Arthur sat there stupidly, waiting for one of them to _do_ something rather than just stare sightlessly down at the heap of incapacitated men that was Arthur and Merlin. They didn't even do anything when the new arrival made his to their grouping, just shifted as he shouldered his way forward to the front to stand just before Arthur.

Arthur almost laughed when he saw who it was, stopping himself because he was fairly certain that he'd just vomit again. Yet it was so ridiculous and so unexpected that Arthur supposed that he should have expected it and so _fitting_ that Arthur knew that it wasn't another hallucination. He didn't have his wits about him nearly enough to have come up with something at all sensible.

It was the skinny sorcerer, the man that Merlin had flung over the balcony, breaking the railing with the impact and sending him down to the stone courtyard below. It was the skinny sorcerer, the first who had found Arthur and would have killed him if another malevolent sorcerer had not wanted to kill him even more. It was that damn skinny sorcerer, who should have been dead and—from the look of his legs and crook of his neck—_would_ be dead once the sun rose and the spell broke. It was so ridiculous and so horrifying that Arthur remembered why magic was so dangerous and could be so..._wrong_. An unexpected wave of pity washed over him. This man should have been dead. He should have been allowed to be dead. This prolonged life for the sole purpose of inflicting death was just cruel. He couldn't even _die_ of his own volition.

His legs were broken and his spine bent, but his eyes glowed gold. Beneath the pity, Arthur wished that the skinny man had not made his way to the front of the pack of sorcerers. They were all almost certainly capable of killing him, but the skinny sorcerer had reason to hold Arthur to something of a grudge, he supposed. At least the legs explained the sound.

It probably didn't matter if there was any grudge anyway, he thought to himself. Even if the skinny sorcerer—of any of the others, for that matter—intended to torture or torment before killing him, he knew damn well that he wouldn't last very long. Another bump to the head would probably finish him, he thought, almost smiling. This was not a very promising situation for the king.

"If there was ever a time for you to surprise me," Arthur told Merlin's body. "This would probably be a good time to do it."

He gave Merlin an encouraging punch on the shoulder for good measure.

Merlin didn't answer.

Arthur wasn't surprised.

So, with the last of his energy, Arthur climbed to his feet, clutching a bit of loose rock that was the closest thing to a weapon that he could manage. He looked at each of the sorcerers in turn, face after face after face. Some of them he knew, mostly peasants from the lower village, although he thought that he recognized a girl from the castle kitchens. More he did not recognize, clearly wanderers beckoned to the citadel against their wills. And yet they all looked the same, glowing eyes and absent expressions. That was good. Easier.

Arthur clenched his fingers tightly around the rock, as tightly as he had clung to his phantom sword, and planted his feet as solidly as he could, hoping that if his knees gave out that he'd fall backward to lean upon the wall rather than forward onto his face. Fighting one final urge to be sick, he raised his chin level with those of the people set on killing him for no reason other than that they had magic and someone was using it against them. Arthur wiped blood off of his forehead with his sleeve.

"All right," said Arthur, addressing the assembled sorcerers. His voice rang in his ears, and he tossed the rock up and down in his left hand. He wasn't tired anymore. "Let's have it, then."

.

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**Okay, I gave **_**myself**_** a headache on this one, but it's written, so it's getting posted. I'm not a fan of this one, but hopefully some others will be able to read it without needing some Tylenol afterward. :)**

**Thank you for reading, and please review!**


	5. Into Darkness Fell

**Disclaimer: _Merlin_ is not mine. **

All in all, Arthur had the feeling that—had he not been so unnerved and woozy and quite possibly dying from what he suspected was brain matter pooling in his ears—he might just have felt rather foolish.

It wasn't as though he didn't happen to have a very _good_ reason for being unnerved and woozy and curious about what was or was not dripping out of his earlobes. It wasn't that he didn't have the right to be frantic or confused, even without taking into account the head injury. It wasn't that the situation didn't call for some sort of reaction that may have been less than dignified. It was just that he would have very much liked to not be the _only one_ reacting.

No one was doing much of anything. No one was speaking or approaching or throwing debris in his general direction. It didn't even look as though anyone was moving at all.

Well, it didn't look as though anyone _else_ was moving. No matter how determined Arthur felt, no matter how many random spurts of energy jolted through his body at the occasional opportune moment, no matter how steadfast were his intentions…there had been too great a toll on his body for him to cut as strong and imposing figure as he would have liked. In what he chose to believe was an at least _somewhat_ convincing attempt to appear in control of his own body, he was in more or less constant motion, shifting his weight from one foot to the other and trying to keep his blood flowing in preparation for whatever—almost certainly unwise—move that he was going to make next. He had to be _ready._

So far, he was successfully not falling down.

It could have been worse, he reasoned, resisting the urge to stick an exploratory finger his ear. It could have been much worse. He wasn't _leaning_ or anything.

But none of the others were doing _anything._ Arthur almost suspected that they were somehow not breathing and were reanimated corpses; he was just beginning to panic again at this fresh absurdity when he realized that they were all somehow inhaling in unison, and it was his own shivering that was making them seem so still.

And so _silent._

"I liked it better when they were reanimated corpses," Arthur murmured, more for the sake of hearing his own voice than anything else. Their silence coupled with his panting at the effort of _standing_ was not helping him to remain calm. He wondered if this was why Merlin never shut up. Maybe he was too worried that _this_ would be the day that Arthur would learn the secret and so he talked and talked and talked to keep everything static. Or maybe he was just naturally annoying.

Arthur shook his head and focused on his opponents. Only the thin man whom Merlin had flung over the railing was making any sort of independent movement, and even that only seemed to be because his frame—magically animated or not—was not in solid enough condition to support his body.

The man was not swaying against the others and kept upright merely by the pressure of the other sorcerers at his sides, as Arthur might have suspected. Rather, the thin man was staggering in his stance, as though each of his bones was sporadically breaking and rehealing itself over and over again in some sort of twisted cosmic determination to remain halfway mobile. His breath was ragged—even compared to Arthur's—and rattling, a fact which wouldn't have unsettled Arthur nearly so much if it hadn't still remained in sync with the steady breathing of the other sorcerers.

Merlin, of course, was too busy being dead to contribute much to the whole scenario.

"Lazy to the last," Arthur muttered, irritated.

Still, in the back of his mind, Arthur hated himself for being almost glad that Merlin had nothing to contribute. Arthur wasn't sure how well he would have been able to stand seeing _Merlin_ breathing with all of the others, staring blankly like all of the others, motionless like all of the others. One on one, it had been easy to separate Merlin from the idea of the other sorcerers on the hunt, easy to believe him something other than an enemy. All lumped together, Merlin among them and the same as them, all in uniform…Arthur didn't know what he would have done.

Not that there was a whole lot that he _could_ be doing. Even if he'd had some sort of weapon more impressive than the chunk of his own castle, he couldn't imagine that he could manage any sort of offensive that would be anything other than embarrassing. The best that he could do was to try to arrange himself in some sort of stance—shifting or not—that disguised at least somewhat the extent of his injuries. He was nearly optimistic; the dirt and dust that more or less coated his body-mostly from the destruction of the corridor and the violent slide down the hall that were courtesy of his renegade manservant's magical temper tantrum-almost certainly concealed _some_ of the cuts and scrapes. Actually, from what little he could gather without looking himself over, the dust was serving to clot some of his wetter wounds.

He chose to ignore the medical implications. This wasn't really the time to worry about infection. The damage was probably already done, and it wasn't as though Gaius could amputate his head. What was infection at a time like this?

Still, no amount of dust could hide the fact that he was clutching his right arm to his body in an attempt to keep it stabilized. Besides, even if any of the sorcerers were able to overlook how he held himself, the lack of precision with which he tossed the rock up and down in his uninjured hand surely gave away the fact that he was rather unpracticed with his left arm.

Also, there had apparently not been enough dust on his face to clot the scrape that ran along his cheek. Or the brain matter that was probably oozing out of his ears.

In a way, it was unfortunate; if he'd slid a bit farther, been hurled a bit deeper, fallen a bit harder…maybe there would have been enough grime to hide it all. As it was, Arthur didn't think that the slide had been cumulative enough of the debris to help him into fooling anyone into thinking him the paragon of health and heartiness just then.

"Count on Merlin to slack off," Arthur breathed. He was already half wishing that he'd chosen a less weighty rock. Or no rock at all. It was the _brave_ thing to do, yes. There was something wonderfully tragic and courageous and epic about making a last stand on his two feet with whatever weapon he could manage. The only problem was that the idea of a last stand was seeming much more tragic than epic as the seconds passed. What good was a _rock_ going to do him? Even if he threw it with enough force to actually hit one of them, he couldn't exactly count on it ricocheting off of each of their heads to knock them _all_ out.

Although that would have been a hell of a sight.

But as it was, the rock would probably do him no favors. The last thing that he needed was for one of them to decide to magically disarm him before going for the kill and went ahead to break his _other_ arm. Unpracticed as he was with his left arm, he still did not particularly want to make his last stand a series of kicks.

But he would be damned if he weren't going to be _brave _about the whole thing.

"Someone once told me that bravery is really only a very particular type of stupidity," said Arthur, louder.

There was no response. Just as well. He couldn't remember who had told him that.

Maybe he really should have just played dead.

It probably wouldn't help his chances that he was standing over another sorcerer's corpses, Arthur realized gloomily. It wasn't as though Arthur had actually had anything to do with Merlin's collapse—which had been much more epic and tragic than anything Arthur was capable of at that point—but it couldn't have looked very good. Arthur had been beaten half to death, and despite his best efforts, it showed; he wondered whether it could seem as though he'd taken the hits as he'd fought Merlin, perhaps striking him down by a lucky blow to the head with a rock that was apparently his weapon of choice. Yes, it probably didn't look too great for Arthur to have killed one of them.

It _did_ seem that at least some of the sorcerers were looking at Merlin rather than at Arthur. It was difficult to say for sure; the gold that overtook even the whites of their eyes obscured any definitive indication of what they might have actually been focusing on. Arthur could only guess by the tiltings of their faces and the angles of their necks. Of course, Arthur and the fallen Merlin practically overlapped; surely it was his own wishful thinking that these sorcerers could be focusing on anything other than a consideration of just how they should go about killing the king.

If that were the case, however, they were certainly taking their time about it. It didn't seem as though there was any magical mandate about leaving Arthur for whoever had cast this spell or that there was some special ritual to be completed before he died. The thin sorcerer and Merlin hadn't wasted any time in trying to kill him. It was only by luck that both had failed at doing so. The overall goal seemed to just be to kill Arthur. It was what made the most sense, he knew. Whoever had cast the spell had to know that there was at least _some_ chance that it would take some time for Arthur to be found, even with Merlin on the prowl; he or she would want Arthur dead without ceremony before the sun had the chance to rise and ruin it all.

So why were they dawdling _now?_

Arthur supposed that he ought to be glad that they weren't hastening to smack him with rocks or destroy more of his castle or fling him down to the courtyard or blow him up like he was a set of enemy stocks, but his body was aching and his arm was broken and he was dirty and his brain was oozing and it was only force of will that was keeping him conscious by that point, and Arthur was sick of not knowing what the hell was going on. Gratitude might have come a bit earlier, perhaps if there'd been a reprieve between the attacks that were beginning to feel more and more like terribly _cheap_ shots. When _he_ challenged an enemy to a duel, he at least made sure that they had the same weapons. Was there no honor in sorcery?

Still, as much as he was already mourning his manservant, Arthur found himself resenting him for the fact that his body ached and his arm was broken and he was dirty and his brain was probably broken, and _all_ because of Merlin. Yes, Arthur might have been grateful back when he'd still been all in one piece. Now the decision was made and he was staying and—with that choice—all vestiges of graciousness had vanished. Arthur was just annoyed.

"I ought to throw this rock at _you_," Arthur told the dead Merlin.

His throat was thick, and Arthur coughed.

Why weren't they _doing_ anything?

In a far corner of his mind, where he wasn't annoyed and he wasn't mourning and he hadn't already given himself up for dead, something nagged at him. Something was telling him that he ought to be glad of the delay for some reason other than the obvious. There was something that he wasn't seeing, and it was right _there_…

But his head hurt and his throat ached and it all seemed so unimportant but there was _something_ and…

And…

And…

And it didn't really matter, did it? He didn't have any control in the matter. He didn't have any power. Now, with the knowledge that _Merlin_ of all people had been a sorcerer, had he ever had control over _anything?_ No, there was nothing that he could do to change a damn thing, and it hurt more than he would have imagined. He was the _king,_ and he didn't have any _control…_

But then, Arthur thought suddenly, neither did they.

Well, _that_ was a troublesome thought. Merlin hadn't had a choice because Merlin was a sorcerer, and these were sorcerers, and if they didn't have any control and Arthur didn't have any control, what the _hell_ were they fighting over?

That was a question that Arthur Pendragon found that he particularly did not want to answer. But now that he'd gone ahead and _thought_ of it…

"I should have sacked you ages ago," Arthur said conversationally, speaking at Merlin again. "You ruin everything. Oh well. Maybe they'll take mercy and kill me now."

They did not kill him, but he was spared any further immediate consideration of the matter because someone finally, _finally _moved.

It was a girl.

And all at once, Arthur realized that he'd liked it better when no one was moving. He tensed as best he could without falling over, fighting a bizarre urge to laugh. It was almost funny, he thought; by far the smallest of the assembled sorcerers, this girl had broken ranks and moved forward in her patched apron and flour fingerprints and messy braid, and Arthur was _afraid_ of her. Really, it was almost funny.

But his throat was thick and he couldn't laugh. He coughed instead.

Then, even as Arthur clenched his fingers more tightly around the rock that was his only weapon, he took a closer look at the girl. She had the vaguely familiar look that Arthur tended to associate with most servants, those with specialized duties excepted. Merlin was excepted as well, but that was mostly due to prolonged exposure and the fact that he was spectacularly bad at his job. Most servants were not so notable, Arthur thought. Not to the king, anyway. Arthur didn't even meet many of them, let alone hire them. That's what stewards were for. Arthur could have seen most servants every day and never have bothered to take a good look unless something was done wrong and it wasn't Merlin who'd done it.

Arthur wondered what that said about him. It seemed perfectly reasonable. He was a busy man. Yet...

Still, Arthur was almost positive that this was one of the kitchen girls. He would have seen her a thousand times, eaten meals that she'd prepared, nodded his acknowledgment without really acknowledging, accepted her curtsies as expected courtesies. He would have seen her a thousand times, and she was a sorcerer.

Or sorcer_ess_. He was fuzzy on the rules.

Considering it, Arthur thought that he'd've felt like a fool for not knowing about his magical kitchen girl whose name he couldn't even place...if he hadn't had a magical _manservant_ around him for most of his waking hours over the past decade. Compared to the Merlin oversight, the kitchen girl's secret sorcery was almost negligible.

Arthur coughed again, and then he realized.

_He_ may not have known her name, but Merlin would have. They would have known each other, surely, although Merlin had been abrupt and unpleasant for an entire day after Arthur had given the impression that he thought that all servants know one another. But for whatever reason, people seemed to _like_ Merlin. Arthur had always assumed that this was the case because they didn't have to deal with Merlin for a manservant. Not that Arthur couldn't have just gotten rid of Merlin. But that was an _entirely_ different issue that Arthur tended not to think about.

This girl, though…she would have known Merlin. She might have even liked him. Maybe she was one of the kindly servants—amused rather than irritated by the fact that Merlin _still_ hadn't gotten himself sacked or flogged or executed for his behavior—who snuck Merlin food when he didn't have time to dine with Gaius and one of the servants who prepared Arthur's meals anyway when Merlin had forgotten to run down to the kitchens to give notice that the king was hungry and didn't trust any unidentifiable meals that Merlin brought him anymore. She was young enough that she and Merlin might have even been friends.

So that wasn't great for Arthur just then.

The girl walked forward and came very close. Arthur fought he instinct to step backward, not wanting to touch her. She paid him no mind, apparently not so preoccupied with the general motionlessness as Arthur had been. She just bent low over Merlin and—in an act so bizarrely tender and contrary to her expressionless face—tilted Merlin's chin so that he would have been staring straight up if his eyes hadn't been closed.

And if he hadn't been dead. There was also that. Arthur kept forgetting. He coughed again.

The girl knelt at Merlin's side and, as she did so, Arthur could have sworn that the other sorcerers all leant forward to look at the body of the fallen sorcerer, if the directions of their heads were at all indicative of their gazes. He wondered if they were going to light Merlin on fire or move him aside or do something equally strange at such a time. He didn't know how sorcerers usually dealt with their dead. He knew what _Uther_ had usually done with the bodies of dead sorcerers, but Arthur couldn't imagine that they would be so callous with one of their own. Arthur hadn't changed the law forbidding sorcery, but even _he_ couldn't have borne to deal with them as had his father.

Maybe these sorcerers would build a magical pyre for Merlin. He should probably move away from Merlin lest he too be burnt, Arthur thought wildly. His vision swam suddenly, and he shook his head before deliberately shifting his broken arm in the hopes that the pain would perk him up.

It did, and Arthur said a word that always made Guinevere shake her head.

Arthur didn't move away, and Merlin didn't catch fire. The sorcerers just…looked. They leant forward and _looked._ It was all terribly eerie, and he looked back at Merlin.

Arthur shifted his arm again and coughed.

The kitchen girl had taken Merlin's hand and she now held it in her own for a moment. Arthur was just beginning to wonder if they had perhaps been more than friends—a secret that Arthur would have just yesterday been positive that Merlin would not be capable of keeping—and if her feelings for Merlin were breaking through the spell just as Merlin had broken through for Arthur, but her eyes showed no signs of flickering. She just gently unfolded the fingers and moved his hand up toward his face, and Arthur understood. She flattened Merlin's palm and laid it delicately against the welt that had burned his cheek.

It was almost as bad as when Arthur had first realized what Merlin had done to himself. Seeing the pale and unbroken flesh of the back of Merlin's hand contrasting so vividly with the terrible burn even as the edges matched perfectly was such a reminder of the reality of the mortality of what was happening that Arthur's throat grew thick again and he was so thoroughly uncomfortable that he thought again of making a run for it just to escape having to see it all again.

The girl let go of Merlin's hand, and it dropped heavily to his side, her tenderness apparently spent. Still, she did not rise. Rather, she reached her own hand out and matched her palm to the shape of his on his cheek. Her palm was smaller than Merlin's, and it looked as though she had pressed hers against a larger hand, red palm wider and red fingers longer. She closed her eyes, and Arthur realized for the first time that none of them had been blinking.

Drawing a sharp breath, Arthur waited for something to happen. Would she wake from the spell? Would she decide that Arthur had done this to her fellow sorcerer and that it was finally time for him to die? Would she attack him as had the skinny sorcerer, without prelude, or would she toy with him, as had Merlin? He couldn't say for sure.

But all the same, he started to back away.

He started to back away and—at first—he didn't quite realize that he wasn't doing it of his own volition. It was the _sensible_ thing to do, of course, but he'd been going with the more nonsensical courses of action throughout the entire night. Would there be any point in changing _now?_ He'd _meant_ to stay where he was and hold his ground, insignificant a gesture as it was. He meant to be so brave that he was stupid and so stupid that he was brave. Assuming that his legs wouldn't give out on him, he'd fully intended to stay where he was.

But he was backing away.

More confused than alarmed, he glanced around him. He'd been so focused on the girl that he'd all but forgotten about the others. They were so still and same that even watching the servant girl examine Merlin's injuries had seemed a better alternative to trying to avoid looking any of the others in the eyes. The last thing that he wanted to do was to go ahead and _recognize_ another one of them. That would hardly do him any good. It certainly wouldn't make any of this any easier.

When he twisted around, however, he saw that all but one of the assembled sorcerers were not looking at him but rather at either the girl or Merlin. It was impossible for him to say for certain, but Arthur had a bizarre feeling that they weren't staring at the servant girl. She'd been with them all along, but the sight of the fallen Merlin seemed to have changed something, somehow.

Even as he was backed away, Arthur shivered.

The one sorcerer who was not looking in Merlin's direction happened to be the skinny sorcerer with the broken body.

Of _course_ it was, Arthur thought, nearly laughing again. Of course. Maybe this slow backing away was the skinny man's broken way of exacting his revenge. Arthur wasn't entirely sure about how sorcery worked, but he knew that if _he_ had been thrown off of a balcony, his fighting skills wouldn't have been at their finest either.

Still. Backing the kingly slowly to death down a corridor didn't seem like a feat worth bragging about. Not without some exaggeration, anyway. Arthur wasn't even being eased toward the edge of the balcony.

But that wasn't the point. The _point_ was that the skinny sorcerer was doing something magical to him, and the manner in which he was doing it was either very encouraging or very ominous.

It was also slightly anticlimactic.

Certainly not for the first time that evening, Arthur been expecting some sort of attack, but this was so gentle a sensation that he didn't know what to do. If this was an attack, it was one significantly less effective than what Merlin had unleashed on him. He was just…walking backwards. It wasn't right. Unless one of them had managed to silently collapse a portion of the corridor and he was now being walked into an unseen hole, he did not see how this was much of a completion of the task of killing the king. The only pain that he felt was that which had preceded this new spell. It wasn't right at all.

Then, so abruptly that he would have fallen if he had not been walking away so slowly, the skinny sorcerer released him. As he did so, the assembled sorcerers moved forward to form a semicircle around Merlin and the kitchen girl, who still knelt above him. After a moment, she opened her eyes, and Arthur's heart sank; his admittedly meager hope that Merlin's body was somehow waking her from the spell was now vanished. Her eyes were as brightly golden as they had been when she'd first appeared. She stood up straight and took a place in the semi-circle. They all looked at Merlin.

Arthur waited for something to happen.

Bizarrely, it was the skinny sorcerer who moved forward next. Falling more than kneeling at Merlin's side, he took the place abandoned by the serving girl. Anthur inhaled sharply again. The thin man may have delayed his revenge on Arthur, but _Merlin_ had been the one to fling him over the balcony. Perhaps the man merely intended to do some damage to what was left of Merlin before attacking Arthur. Or maybe doing damage to what was left of Merlin _was_ his way of attacking Arthur.

The skinny sorcerer gave no indication that he intended anything approaching violence. Instead, he copied the movements of the servant girl, placing Merlin's hand over the welt on his cheek and then replacing Merlin's hand with his own. After a minute or two, he forced himself to his feet and staggered back to the semi-circle of sorcerers.

And then came the next.

One by one, the sorcerers approached Merlin and ran their fingers over the handprint blistered onto Merlin's face, tracing the lines of the welt with the sides of his hand, each carrying out a similar but _slightly _different examination, as though the one who had gone before had surely missed something. They took turns, the malevolence that had been directed at Arthur somehow transformed—in the switched of attention to Merlin—into something akin to curiosity, if that were even possible in their states, Arthur thought. It was so _orderly_ that it was unsettling.

Oddly, Arthur found himself remembering an occasion from when he was a child, before Morgana had come to them, on which he and his father had gone to visit a neighboring kingdom to recognize the birth of a princess. He'd hated the whole thing, only too aware even as a child that this visit would probably end with negotiations for a betrothal between him and the new arrival, but he had his duty. He had no choice but to appear awed and interested and not at all resentful that he might have to marry this infant someday. There had been a line of people—nobles and royalty, of course—passing by the child's crib, stopping to make some comment or smile or cry rapturously or—in _his_ case—wish that she'd been a boy so that he wouldn't have to marry her. They'd each stopped and made the necessary noises and everyone had been so impressed that Arthur had felt guilty for being bored because he didn't understand.

Although far too much on edge to be bored at _this _particular moment, Arthur found that he didn't understand this orderly sorcerous examination of his dead manservant any better than he had the excitement over a baby girl. Granted, he didn't think that there was much of a chance that anyone was going to insist that he someday marry _this_ object of attention…he just wished that there was some training or some teacher or experience that might have prepared him for this. He also had the vague feeling that he ought to be bothered that these unfamiliar people were handling Merlin's body, but they were so strangely reverential that Arthur was more unnerved than offended on Merlin's behalf. As he watched the strange procession, Arthur felt more objective than he had in what seemed like days.

Even as he looked, it took Arthur a few moments to realize that it had stopped. They must have all had their turn, he realized. It must have been over, this examination of their fallen familiar. It was as over for them as it was for Arthur. Surely, this had just been their way of bidding farewell. Closure was closure, he reasoned, whether you happen to be a king or a murderous sorcerer enchanted to kill the local monarch. Arthur was shivering again, so he twitched his broken arm and coughed.

The sorcerers were in their perfect semi-circle again, Arthur noted, all of them looking down at Merlin.

Minutes passed.

Arthur didn't move.

Then, all at once, as in sync in this as they had been as they'd breathed, the sorcerers collapsed. Some fell backward and some fell forward. Others fell to their sides and collided with another so that they slid to the ground pressed against each other. They were still arranged in a loose semicircle around Merlin, and Arthur was suddenly reminded of the faceless miniature soldiers that Uther and his advisors had always used to strategize on the maps that had seemed so large once and that Arthur had liked to play with, sneaking in when the room was empty and taking a red and gold Camelot doll to knock all of the others down into a heap of enemy soldiers. Arthur would laugh and smile and have his fun above them before he put them all right once more before his father came and realized that Arthur had been playing with the war figures again. But these fallen people were not wooden dolls, they were not so small that Arthur felt a giant above them, they were not toys, they had faces…and Arthur would not just be able to clean them all up again and hide them away so that no one would know that this was somehow his fault. And all that he'd wanted to do was have his way with them, do with them as his father had done…but he wasn't a child anymore and they all had faces now…and Arthur didn't think that these would ever stand again, no matter whether or not he might try to prop them up again.

Even as the sorcerers hit the cracked and broken stones beneath their feet, they never made a sound.

Arthur didn't move. He wanted to leave this place and find his wife and find Gaius and sleep and hunt down whoever had placed this terrible curse and pretend that none of it had ever happened. There was so much that he wanted—that he _needed—_to do, and none of it involved remaining here, bearing witness to nothing at all.

Arthur didn't move.

Minutes passed.

And Arthur looked.

The kitchen girl who had first approached Merlin had fallen closest to Arthur, one of those who had fallen backwards. He didn't want to touch her; why should he? She was gone, he was almost certain. What point would there be in touching her? He wasn't even sure that he would be able to properly detect a pulse if he tried by fumbling with his left hand. And he didn't need to feel an absence of pulse to know. Her body did not move and her chest did not rise. She was gone.

Still, this was like no death that Arthur had ever seen. He'd witnessed plenty of men dead and dying; no recently deceased person—_very_ recently, in this case—ought to have lost her color so quickly. She was downright _gray_ and, as there was no apparent wound through which she could have lost enough blood to kill her and give her such a pallor, it didn't seem right. The only parts of her that retained its proper pinkness were her lips, and they were so chapped that Arthur could hardly believe that they hadn't cracked and bled on her. If there was any blood _in_ her.

It was all so _odd…_

So Arthur bent over her, swaying slightly in his crouch as he fought to ignore the instinct to steady himself buy planting his right arm as an anchor. This was stupid enough already; he didn't need to make it worse by breaking the arm even more significantly. He took an extra moment and steadied himself.

Very gently, Arthur lowered his fingers over her right eyes, thumb on lower lid and forefinger on the upper. He slowly eased her eye open and looked, knowing that he could miss a pulse and confuse motionlessness, but when a person was dead, the eyes could not lie. So Arthur opened her eye and looked...

...and if Arthur had had anything left in his stomach and any energy left in his body, he was sure that he would have vomited. Even so, the nausea was tempered by a terrible sadness. Sorceress or not, she had been so _young…_no one ought to have to go to her grave in this state. Not like this…

Her eyes were gone, the skin lining the socket black and flaky. Her face was quite cool, but as shaken as he was, there was no doubt in Arthur's mind: somehow, her eyes had burned out.

Gaius hadn't told him about this part of the curse. In fact, Arthur thought that he remembered the old man telling him that afternoon—it seemed like ages ago—that the sorcerers would wake from their trances unharmed and unaware. Bile crept up the back of his throat, and Arthur blinked away angry tears that would have usually shamed him. Why would Gaius have lied about this? He would have known that Arthur would find out the truth. Why would he lie and not say that the sorcerers' eyes would burn? He looked down at the girl with no eyes and cursed the physician for the first time in his entire life.

Somewhere in the back of his mind as he looked at the young woman who had been his servant, Arthur realized that he didn't know what color her eyes had been, and it was something that he wouldn't even _try_ to blame on the blow to his head. He'd never known her eye color. She had just been a servant, but now she was dead and her eyes were burnt out and he didn't even know her name. And it wasn't even his _fault…_why did he feel so guilty about it?

He thought that he probably ought to check the others. Just because she was dead with burnt eyes didn't mean that the others were in the same condition. Just because one had fallen thusly didn't mean that they all had.

But he knew. Suddenly very dizzy, he moved away from her and staggered backward until he hit the wall. He slid down into a sitting position and pulled his knees up. He closed his eyes, wishing that he could unsee everything. But there she was, and her eyes were gone and she was dead and they were all dead but Arthur _wasn't_ and he should have been and it didn't make any sense and he hadn't thought to check Merlin's eyes but they were probably burnt and gone as well and they'd been blue before they'd been gold again when he'd placed his hand on his head and his eyes were probably gone and at least Arthur had known what color _Merlin's_ eyes had been when they were and how on _earth_ was Arthur going to explain this to anyone?

His throat was thick and he began to grow very warm in his armor. He clenched his fists and covered his eyes, already shut though they had been. Maybe she would be gone, maybe he wouldn't see anything at all, maybe he could just _sleep_ for a little bit…

And someone coughed.

Arthur didn't move. He didn't even breathe. He wasn't sure at first that _he_ hadn't been the one to cough and was just so on the verge of passing out that he hadn't the capacity to realize. But his throat was still thick. If anything, he _needed_ to cough. It had been someone else, someone else around him, someone close…

Someone was alive or, at the very least, still dying.

He shouldn't want it to be Merlin. He knew that. Even if it _was_ Merlin who was somehow alive, he'd be blind and his face would be seared and he'd probably be half deaf from the burned ear and his wits scrambled from the intensity…how could he wish for Merlin to be alive and have to live like that? What kind of man would Arthur be if he could wish that life upon his friend? He shouldn't want it to be Merlin.

Still, when Arthur heard the cough and processed that it wasn't his own, his heart leapt into his throat and his fists fell from his face and his eyes began to open. It didn't matter that he should want Merlin to have his rest, that it would be easier and more painless for Merlin to not have to wake, that it was cruel of him to hope. It didn't matter. Arthur had to see. He had to check.

So he opened his eyes.

He opened his eyes, and there was a brightness so sudden and so utterly overwhelming that he was irrationally struck with a terrible fear that his eyes were also burning out somehow, that he too would be blind and dead soon, that he too would be found lifeless in this assembly of fallen sorcerers. Their magic had killed them, and it was somehow happening to Arthur as well.

But there was no pain.

There was no pain at all and, after a moment, he realized why he couldn't see, and he laughed aloud in relief, too exhausted to reflect much on the impropriety of it. His eyes weren't magically burning out. He wasn't going blind or roasting from the inside out. He wasn't going to die, not like this. It wasn't magic at all.

The sun had risen over the courtyard. Arthur was squinting.

And once more, someone coughed.

.

.

.

.

**Well, I don't have a whole lot of faith at all in this one, but I felt guilty for leaving the story hanging. I know that can be really annoying. **

**I've been stuck and unmotivated for a while, partly because I've gotten hooked on another TV show and because this is the only one of my multi-chapter stories that I didn't plan out ahead of time. The "In Media Res" stories can be surprisingly difficult to expand upon. Oddly, I've actually had chunks of this chapter written for well over a month. **

**But anyway, here's an update! Hopefully there are still a few around willing to read it. **

**Thank you for reading, and reviews are always appreciated! **


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